About the AWSS Logo
By Donna Scheungrab Hulka
For the AWSS web site, January 2002

When I joined AWSS in 1998, the first newsletter I received mentioned the possibility of AWSS adopting a new logo. I am by no means an artist, but thoughts and ideas for a logo began to bounce around in my head and continued to bother me until I put something down on paper in the summer of 2000. After a lot of frustration and erasing and starting over, I e-mailed a drawing to the AWSS Executive Committee in October 2000. In the December 2000 newsletter, Susan Samson-Liebig, then Executive Committee Chair, solicited comments from the AWSS membership regarding my logo idea. The following article from the April 2001 newsletter tells the rest of the story.

Note from the Chair, Susan Samson-Liebig
AWSS Newsletter, April 2001

Due to the many positive responses to the design of the new AWSS logo, we have adopted it. The old logo of the shovel has retired this year. The new logo was designed by Donna Hulka (our webmaster). The artist's description of the logo: viewed right-side up, it's an abstract representation of land (curves at the bottom), water (squiggles over the curves), a leaf(coming out of the soil), and the sun/moon above. Turned on its side, you see a woman's face with the land and water as hair, the leaf as lips, and the sun/moon as her eye. One of our members put it best saying that this logo has such creativity and unspoken meaning. I am certain that current and future members will enjoy the new design. Big thanks to Donna for her creativity!

The Previous AWSS Logo

The first AWSS logo (pictured below) featured a sharpshooter, or tiling spade, a tool much-used by soil scientists. Judy Ness, Landscape Architect Technician, Superior National Forest, Minnesota, drew the sharpshooter for AWSS in 1984.