Unpacking Meaning: Our Homestyle OT Logo

Our Story: “The Logo”

When we left off with our last blog Choosing Cool Shoes, we promised to “unpack” the meaning of our logo.  When creating it,  we spent a good amount of time deliberating about all the small details: the color, size, font, and words.  We have fielded a lot of questions about it along the way, so we thought we’d share its meaning. We love it and feel strongly that it represents us, our mission, and profession well. So here it is…Our Logo Story.

The Basket: 

When thinking of an image, we both immediately knew and agreed upon a very particular woven basket to represent Homestyle OT.  The basket for us, carries the meaning of tradition, creativity, cultural and professional history, and wholeness. Throughout human history, a basket often contains nourishment for the body and soul and is a vital tool in creating community connections and maintaining everyday routines. In addition, we believe the basket is an ideal image that represents a timeless therapeutic activity. The simple action of weaving occupies, moves, and transforms the human mind, body and spirit, AND that is what we do! Check out these links for more on the significance of weaving baskets in OT history. The first is an entertaining OT history in a “nut shell” (created by students), the other is a  longer version for a more in depth, intriguing, history, full of actual stories of OT throughout history from AOTA.  

The Book:

Notice, nestled in the basket is a book, titled Sharing Stories. To us, this book represents the human story of each person we meet.  Within each story shared we better understand an individual’s values, beliefs, and life experiences that have made them who they are. These stories, like each person, are dynamic, forever developing and changing.  As occupational therapists we know that each person has a story to consider (“What Do I Do?”), and that personal story is at the heart of all interventions (“Choosing Cool Shoes”) (“It’s More Than the Pants”).

The Name:  

Why Homestyle OT? The word “Home” for us evokes a sense of safety.  A place of refuge, belonging and emotional connection.  It was important to us that our blog evoke these same feelings, so that our readers feel it is approachable, welcome and safe to enter the discussion and share stories. The definition of homestyle according to Merriam Webster (2024) includes “having qualities (such as simplicity, familiarity, and unpretentiousness) associated with or evocative of home.”  It was crucial to us that this space feels comfortable, and most importantly, as  welcoming to the reader who is  googling “What is occupational therapy?” (“What is OT? Your Response in the Elevator”) as it is to a seasoned practitioner searching for inspiration or ways to enrich their practice. (“What Do I Do?”)  

The Byline: “Recipes for Living”

A recipe is simply a  list of instructions and ingredients  for making or preparing something. Within each of our blogs, we aim to create an organization and structure with ideas presented.  The recipe cards help condense information, giving therapists a way to reflect on the takeaway messages of our content and use it to inspire the way they think about their practice.  We like to think occupational therapists are much like a master chef in combining learned methodologies and data driven research while considering the unique preferences of each person we serve to move towards health and well being and a true sense of “living”.

All in all, the outcome of each recipe will be unique, considering the skills and talents of the individual therapist and the specific interests of the person receiving services.  Each recipe will be dynamic in nature because each therapist brings themselves and their own creativity, combining “both rational (scientific) judgements, and intuitive (artistic) decisions” (Yerxa, 1966), within this process.  

That’s It!

So, it turns out that we believe our logo is pretty special. It holds a lot of meaning both to us personally, and to the profession. We LOVE it! Literally… we made stickers and tee shirts are in the works! We have to confess though, that despite our love for the basket image our research has revealed that not every occupational therapist reveres the basket to represent our profession… Some actually feel strongly that it undermines or minimizes our professional status!  We hear those voices, yet we challenge that notion, as we both are decidedly not willing to throw out the beautiful symbolism of the basket with the bathwater!  In fact, we would like to think of it as a campaign to bring back the basket to practice. 

So that’s it – a basket and a book. Simple, yet deeply meaningful. We hope you’ll never look at a basket in the same way again! We are now ready to move onward to share our work using stories and storytelling as an occupation to create and develop identity and relationships.  We have been working behind the scenes to bring an occupational based, relationship-building curriculum, to life.  Isn’t that what OT practice should be? We are getting ready to show and share our work! Thanks to a little encouragement from this book: Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon.  Now go grab that cup of coffee, or whatever keeps you going.  Spring is coming, and we have some good stories and work to share on the way. 

Warm Regards, 

Jennica and Leanne

References

@psalmseeker. (2014, January 23) History of Occupational Therapy Timeline [Video], YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwt-QUvXzHo

Kleon, Austin. (2024). Show Your Work. https://austinkleon.com/show-your-work/

Merriam-Webster (2024). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homestyle

The American Occupational Therapy Association. (2017, April 20). Celebrating AOTA’s Centennial: A Historical Look at 100 Years of Occupational Therapy [Video], YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbCwf2CzGvw

Yerxa, E. J. (1966).  1966 Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lecture Authentic Occupational Therapy In Padilla, R., & Griffiths, Y. (2017).  A Professional Legacy, The Elenor Clarke Slagle Lectures in Occupational Therapy 1955-2016 (Centennial ed, pp. 105-115). Bethesda: American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.