Origin G

Story by John DeFaro

Shaping a Letter into Life

An ancient-inspired mark, a playful logo, a living symbol for Green Religion

The Origin G began as my search for a mark that could represent Green Religion. I was looking for something as simple and ancient as a symbol made before words, yet alive enough to carry our mission today.

Living in Miami, when I walk beneath the wide arms of Live Oaks, Royal Poincianas, Octopus trees, and Wild Tamarinds, I'm reminded that it's silly to even say I "connect" to nature.

I am nature.

That phrase carries personal weight for me. Growing up on Eastern Long Island, I once stood on the barn studio floor of Jackson Pollock, the renowned painter who famously declared to fellow artist and teacher Hans Hofmann: "I am nature."

Pollock's words captured a moment of visionary confidence, an insistence that the artist's inner life and the natural world were inseparable.

For me, those words are not something to measure against. They are a reminder of what I experience daily. Green Religion begins with participation. The canopy above, the ground beneath, and the body moving through both are not separate experiences. They are part of the same living system.

Today, that spirit runs throughout Green Religion. It appears in ideas such as Climate AWEAR and Famous Outside, reminders that we are not spectators of the living world but participants within it.

More recently, the project has begun exploring another question:

What becomes possible when we participate more fully in the living one?

The Origin G grew from that current.

Jackson Pollock's barn, Springs, New York. Photo: Emily Martin

Gumby, Green, and the Living World

The Origin G shifted through many playful references along the way. Dinosaurs and their clunky steps appeared. So did Gumby, the green clay character who welcomed me to many childhood mornings.

Gumby's creator, Art Clokey, was more than a pioneer of animation. He was an artist, spiritual seeker, and early environmental thinker. He chose green for Gumby as a symbol of chlorophyll and humanity's connection to the Earth.

That choice always stayed with me.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder if Clokey was living his dream life while creating Gumby. Not a dream life built on status or escape, but one rooted in imagination and participation.

Green Religion has been exploring a similar question lately. What becomes possible when we participate more fully in the living world?

Perhaps Gumby was Clokey's answer.

Gumby, created by Art Clokey. An unlikely inspiration behind the Origin G.

Gumby's flexible, clay-like form inspired how I shaped and reshaped the G. It reminded me that humor, imagination, and advocacy can share the same line.

While Gumby's green carried ecological hope, I chose not to replicate it directly in the Green Religion identity. Through conversations with artist and writer Erin Parish, the palette gradually moved toward a teal, a meeting place between grass and sea.

That became the Green Religion color.

A color where canopy and coastline meet.

The Hidden Flower Inside the Letter

My collaboration with Fulano Inc. and creative director Leyden Rodriguez helped establish the visual identity of Green Religion. During one of our earliest conversations, Leyden pointed to the inner counter of the lowercase "g," the small petal-shaped space hidden within the letter.

That observation stayed with me.

The shape reminded me of the leaf of the Autograph Tree, a Florida native, and the bloom of the Plumeria, or Frangipani, a beloved plant that arrived from elsewhere.

Plumeria (Frangipani). A quiet inspiration behind the Origin G. 

As design imagery, the resemblance carries a quiet ecological tension. One bloom emerged from this landscape. The other journeyed here. Together they invite reflection on how species move, adapt, and become part of the places we call home.

The more I looked at that inner space, the more important it became.

Studio Reflection: The Emergence of the Origin G

The Origin G began with a playful hand-drawn tree sketch.

I shared the drawing with AI as part of an early creative exploration. The tool introduced movement and possibilities, but eventually I returned to the drafting table.

Pencil in hand.

That is where the real work began.

The lowercase "g" stretched upward. The inner petal remained. The form became taller, more tree-like, more creature-like. It felt part trunk, part footstep, part ancient glyph.

The lowercase "g" remains part of the Green Religion logotype today, but its hidden inner space took on a life of its own.

Voila.

The name Origin G arrived as I searched for language that could hold both simplicity and scale.

I wanted a mark that felt like a beginning.

The first gesture.

The first movement.

The first sign of life emerging and continuing forward.

From the beginning, my ambition was to create a symbol that could carry meaning in ways words sometimes cannot. Like ancient markings made before spoken language, I wanted something recognizable, memorable, and alive.

For now, the Origin G serves as Green Religion's curious and playful emblem.

It seems to possess its own momentum.

As if it might simply get up and walk away.

I often imagine it moving across the landscape like some early creature. A little awkward. A little majestic. Ancient and new at the same time.

The Origin G reminds me that participation always begins with a first step.

Green Religion does not promise a dream life.

It asks what becomes possible when we participate more fully in the living one.

The Origin G. A mark for participation in the living world. 

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