Bolton Hill’s Gary Anderson earned a place in the pantheon of graphic design when as a young man he won a contest to design a symbol that could be printed onto paper to signify that it was made of recycled paper. That symbol, with three arrows rotating in a circle, is now universally recognized as the recycling symbol, and can be found on paper products, trash receptacles, and merchandise across the globe.
The year was 1970, and Anderson, then an architecture student at the University of Southern California, saw a flier advertising a competition sponsored by the Container Corporation of America (CCA). “CCA was a very socially conscious company”, says Anderson. “They started the Aspen Institute, had a huge art collection, and developed a significant design center.” The CCA design competition was sponsored through the Aspen Institute to coincide with the first Earth Day in 1970 and was advertised nationally to college and high school students. The competition rules stated that the design would remain in the public domain and should be no larger than 1/4 inch.
Anderson felt that he could enter the competition using the drafting tools that he had as an architecture student. It only took a couple of days to develop and refine his concept for the recycling symbol. What inspired him? Anderson first refers to an experience during an elementary school field trip in Las Vegas where he saw a newspaper’s printing press. The rolls of paper rotating through the printing presses caught his imagination and, along with the verb “cycle”, would later represent paper to him.
Secondly, in the 4th or 5th grade he was captivated by a poem from “The Space Age Child’s Mother Goose” that described a Mobius strip and included the term “chronodimensional”. The Mobius strip would also inform his design. Finally, he cited inspiration from the drawings by M.C. Escher’s impossible spaces, which regained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These influences the printing press, the Mobius strip, and the concepts of Escher influenced his design of flat arrows making largish arcs that we know today as the recycling symbol.
Anderson won first prize and was awarded $2,500 to be used for education. He stated that he was happy to win but wasn’t overwhelmed by the award, opining “With the arrogance of youth, I thought ‘Of course I won!’”
Using the award proceeds, he opted to attend the University of Stockholm to pursue a Master’s degree in Social Science. Upon completion, he returned to California to begin his career as an architect but didn’t include the recycling symbol in his resume. “I didn’t think it would last”, Anderson said, but then he saw the recycling symbol on his bank statement. Later, while returning from work as a professor at King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia, he stopped in Amsterdam. Walking along one of the canals, he entered a square, saw three igloo-shaped bins with large recycling symbols emblazoned on them, and was bowled over.
“At that moment I realized that the recycling symbol might be meaningful and I began to feel pride of authorship.” However, it wasn’t until the late 1990s that Anderson received credit for the design in the trade journal Print. Anderson says about the recycling symbol, “I am kind of a one-hit wonder!” He doesn’t profess to be a graphic designer. Rather, he focuses on his accomplishments during a long and illustrious career as an architect and planner in private practice and as a university professor and an author of writing on the role of planning and design in development.
So, on Earth Day this April 22, think of Gary Anderson, who has lived in the 1700 block of Park Avenue since the late 1980s, and his recycling symbol!
– Sallye Perrin
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