Today we have an accidental product of my job, reporting on aviation preservation worldwide. Relatively recently, two major transport, technology and heritage collections on opposite sides of the world changed their logos. The Shuttleworth Collection, in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, UK, adopted a newly designed brand logo:

I immediately though it seemed familiar (though there was no suggestion of plagiarisation, just ‘convergent evolution’ perhaps). Because it reminded me of New Zealand’s science and technology museum, the Museum Of Transport And Technology, known as ‘MOTAT‘:

Though the two logos are remarkably similar looking, for similar organisations, and both featuring very abstract ‘wings’, they are representing different things; the Shuttleworth logo’s centre represents the radial and rotary aero engines, a key working feature of their aircraft collection, and a flower from the Swiss Garden on site. The MOTAT centre is exactly what it seems, the technical symbol of the toothed gear wheel.

Again coincidentally, MOTAT were in the process of a major re-invention after a problematic period, and one element of that was the adoption of a new brand and logo too, so they were already moving away from  the winged gear wheel:

And some ‘riffs’ for special demographics. I hope they did use a gearwheel for kids before as ‘sprogs’ from ‘sprockets’ and ‘cogs’ – but I think not.

There had been others.

Likewise the earlier Shuttleworth logos will seem familiar to some:

Maybe there are a finite number of possible patterns. I’m expecting to make some updates and corrections from those associated with the organisations, so this post, too, will be changing…

James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer.

[Note: Images of brand logos (obviously) the trademarks of the noted organisations, presented here under fair use for discussion.]