I’m happy today to share the new logo and mark for Weyer Law LLC.
Ever since I started thinking about the possibility of going into estate planning and, more specifically, about the possibility of having my own law practice in estate planning, I've been orbiting this concept: Share your harvest.
This new logo features a sheaf of grain to represents the harvest and all that goes with it. For me, harvest and estate planning are both about the ideas of gathering, abundance, and generosity.
Taking each of these in turn:
Gathering is a process of reflection and collecting what it is that is most important in our lives. As we think about what we will leave for those that survive us, it is important to not limit ourselves to simply inventorying our financial assets or accumulated property. Gathering can also be thinking about artifacts of family history, objects of sentimental value, and lessons learned over a lifetime.
Abundance is the idea that there is more than enough to go around, and it stands in opposition to the ideas of scarcity, competition, and zero-sum. A mindset of abundance is one of humility, gratefulness, and trust in others. To live abundantly is to reject wastefulness and carelessness; it is about living thoughtfully.
Generosity is how we share what we have, and it goes hand-in-hand with abundance. To be generous is to share enthusiastically and broadly with others. It is to invite others into our lives and to be open to sharing ourselves with others.
Beyond this, the agricultural theme connects to my time working as a garden apprentice over two years out of college. (The farm I was at didn’t harvest grain at the time, but now they have a modest stand they sow and reap every year.) I loved working outside and working with my hands.
The sheaf of wheat is one of the symbols of Demeter, the Greek mythological goddess of the seasons, the harvest, the sacred law, fertility, and the cycle of life and death.
Indeed, the image of a sheaf of wheat goes neatly with the image of a scythe or sickle – images that remind us of our own mortality.
Grain is an important motif in Christianity, my faith tradition. Writing about grain in the context of Christianity is to contemplate eucharist, grace, transformation, care for the poor, and the shared meal.
Finally, the lines of the sheaf suggest movement upward from the ground toward the sky. I’ve come to think of this as reflective of the experience of generations, with the lower lines symbolizing the generations behind us, the negative space of the binding symbolizing our present, and the lines above representing the future generations. The lines don’t go straight up, nor are they symmetrical. I wanted this asymmetry, because I think it reflects a certain amount of unpredictability and wildness in life. As individuals and as families, may we be grounded in the best parts of our past but also open to new paths and possibilities.