The Greek Community of Canberra have unveiled a new logo, designed to be representative of the community’s three pillar program, incorporating Hellenistic ideologies of faith, culture and language.
Speaking with The Greek Herald, Greek Community of Canberra President John Loukadellis says the new logo is only the beginning of an array of changes brought by the new committee.
“One of the things we did when we came on as a new committee was I had a vision statement that we needed to cooperate and unite under one banner with our religion, our culture and our language,” John Loukadellis says to The Greek Herald.
“So these are the three pillars when we talk about embracing hellenism here in Australia.”
The former logo, Loukadellis explains, had “no significance to Canberra or our community”, incorporating a simple Greek flag with a Santorini bell.
Created by graphic artist Sofia Merkoureas, the new logo incorporates large inspiration from the St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Canberra, which recently underwent reconstruction after being damaged.
READ MORE: St Nicholas Greek Orthodox church in Canberra finishes storm restoration
READ MORE: Greek community in Canberra restores hail-damaged church
“When we look at the St Nicholas church front window, it actually has three windows. The big one in the middle I’m using as faith, the one on the left I’m using as culture and the one on the right I’m using as language,” Loukadellis adds.
“The blue and white dome above actually links all three pillars together.”
The St Nicholas Church in Kingston underwent massive restoration from a severe hail storm in January 2020, damaging as much as 80 percent of the roof. Now boasting four noticeable copper dome roofs, the dome on the logo represents the significance of the church in Canberra.
The Committee were initially presented with twenty new logo designs. Reaching out to the community for feedback, the designs were limited to six options which were then voted upon by the committee.
“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from the design, so I’m very proud of it,” Loukadellis says.
While a year of “turmoil” in from the coronavirus pandemic, Loukadellis is proud of the development in the Greek Community of Canberra, seeing higher numbers of Greek school attendees and community engagement.
“For the past ten or twenty years, the community has been starved of Hellenism,” Loukadellis concludes.
“I have three young boys under seven and I want to instil Greek dancing in them, I want to instil the Greek language in them and I want to instil the Greek faith in them. It’s everything stated in the vision statement.”
