Christiania - the land of free (or three i?)

Believe it or not, it's real - the land of free and a place to dream for a better world, a better life and probably happiness. In the center of Copenhagen, in a huge park area (a squatted military territory) a group of hippies took over. And since 1971 the community is still living there. There were a lot of conflicts with authorities during the last 40 years, but they manage to keep the place as a heaven and a hope for those who need to believe in the idea.
This is a picture taken inside Christiania. What do you think of their life?

They have a few laws: no cars, no hard drugs, no guns, no explosives. And the hole community is: 600 adults, 200 kids, 200 cats, 200 dogs, 17 horses, and a couple of parrots.


But in this post I want to talk about their logo. This is it:

First of all I'm going to say i don't like it. And i will tell you why.
Let me start with the meaning. The 3 dots represent the 3 i's in the name Christiania. The sad part is that this is a very superficial connection, meaningless and disconnected from anything that you will find in there. For a place with so many aspirations and with so many different premises incorporated, it's hard to imagine why they chose something so unoriginal. I think they have something more to say then a plain illustration of the name (which by the way wasn't chosen by them. it was attributed to the place before).
The colors are red and yellow because they found in the ex-military space a large amount of red and yellow paint (wikipedia). I can not imagine why this colors were there, but i like the idea. Practical and symbolic.
The more i think of the design, the more intrigued i am. This community stands for so many things: freedom, hope, humanity, peace, optimism and so on. I really think they could have done better with communicating who they are. Release the freedom from the dots. It's too incarcerating and suffocating.


I think it's too naive and meaningless. But also the draw itself is too strict. Look at the logo below. Belongs to a security company. I think it's more suited for this than the free town. What do you think?

The only advantage of this design is the usability and the diversity of context you can use it and still keep the message and the connection.


Inside the "city" most of the things are branded:



So be free or be three? I choose freedom!

This picture was taken inside Christiania. And I find it so very close to freedom and happiness. I spend 1 hour jumping around. It's the most relevant thing for this place.

UPDATE: the 3 dots could also be an ellipsis (Wikipedia.org: is a mark or series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word in the original text. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought, or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence.) Like something left unsaid or speechless...

*photos taken in Copenhagen, Denmark - August 2010. Thanks to my good friend Carsten who took the time to take me there and jump on the happiness thing with me.