I've already blown through my budget for paying actual designers to do this, and we didn't really get anywhere, so I guess I'm on my own.
Maybe I want an alchemical symbol for a nonexistent element. For a while I thought I wanted a schematic of an Enigma rotor, but those end up just looking like gears or circuit diagrams.
How about a decoder ring?
I want the CODEWORD logo to be a glyph without any letters or text on it. I like non-verbal icons, icons that do not have an obvious corresponding set of phonemes. Icons that are abstract enough to be not directly and obviously representational of some well-known physical object. Simple enough to be recognizable at small, monochrome sizes. Cool enough to be a tattoo.
It doesn't need to be influenced by the existing DNA Lounge logo, and in fact, distancing the two is why I'm leaning against gear-like things. I want it to be its own thing. However, the two of them are often going to be presented near each other on promo materials, so it'd be good if they don't clash too badly.
Simple, right?
The dials of this 16th century French cipher machine [0] have always struck me as distinctive, and the main dial especially seems like it could meet your criteria if just the center bits were rendered.
[0] Cipher machine (Wikipedia)
I was going to point you towards an interesting ad I saw on the Dismaland article, but then you said "I'm leaning against gear-like things". So in the spirit of Anti-useful Internet Answers to Jamie, how about something based on this: http://kinektdesign.com/product-gear-ring.php
I know you don't want letters (or to hark back to the DNA logo), but scytales are pretty nifty and a vertical hexagon with the paper tape in the process of spiraling around it decrypting to CODEWORD on the facet facing the viewer would be cool.
It may be too phenenometic, but I was thinking of a speech bubble with a key in it. Here is a quick mockup. The speech bubble has square corners so it looks more robotic.
This also may be too much like the DNA Lounge logo for your liking. Fortunately this is not a lazyweb post.
For a second, I thought the bow of the key (which is apparently the term for the part that you hold with your fingers) was a set of lips.
Blame OpenClipArt.No wait, I mean that was a completely intentional attempt at including some abstract symbols that are not obviously representational of the upcoming CODEWORD kissing booth.
Or you could combine the key and speech bubble;
Wait, have I drawn a duck?
According to my wife, who said "why are you looking at a duck key", yes.
Godwinned.
Yikes.
And where did you get a time hole map???
France, 1813.
Hi jwz,
Dying to know which are some of those books you have lying open there.
Cheers!
That would be telling, but let's see who can figure it out.
The big one with the red ribbon marker is Luigi Seraphini's "Codex Seraphinianus", which is a really cool book (try a google image search).
I bet the top one is a set of blueprints from the Long Now clock. And bottom-left might be a Mœbius strip.
Selectric typewriter ball sorta thing?
Careful, keep down this path and you'll end up redesigning the new Pepsi logo.
Perhaps draw on sigil magic, without the empowering step. The Sparean sigils the modern chaos magicians are fond of will be too letter-like for your desired result, I think, but something like this http://www.carolinaconjure.com/magic-squares.html might work. Or provide artistic inspiration.
Eyes peering out a speakeasy door?
Stylized RC4/DES/AES iteration diagram?
Briefcase chained to a hand?
The word "codeword" in the context of bars made me think of speakeasies. So here's a pictogram of a speakeasy door with the slot open: <img;><svg fill='white' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='320' width='510' version='1.1' viewBox='0 0 102 64'><defs><pattern id='p' width='4' patternUnits='userSpaceOnUse' height='4'><rect height='4' width='4' fill='white'/><rect height='2' width='2' y='2' x='2' fill='black'/><rect height='2' width='2' fill='black'/></pattern></defs><rect width='102' height='64' fill='white'/><g transform='translate(-1,0)'><rect height='12' width='73' y='15' x='63' fill='url(%23p)'/><path d='m63,15,0,12,1,0,0-12-1,0' fill='black'/></g><path d='m15,27,72,0,0-12-72,0zm-15-15,102,0,0,64-102,0z' fill='white'/><g stroke-width='2' stroke='black' fill='none'><rect height='12' width='72' y='15' x='15'/><rect height='62' width='100' y='1' x='1'/><rect height='22' width='72' y='41' x='15' fill='black'/></g></svg>"/>
I hope it will be displayed properly. A favicon version I made looks quite recognizable.
The preview betrayed me. Maybe more luck with base64:
Nope. You could upload a png to imgur like a human.
I've always been a fan of the 45 RPM spacer, but that's probably too obvious for this. Maybe a modified version tho? Like, add claws?
Is that the Voynich manuscript?
Ack, nevermind, that's Codex Seraphinianus, as someone above pointed out. Always a fun "read".
Simplified circular slide-rule marked with icons for cocktails, music, mushroom clouds.
Chuck D:
I like these, but they read too much as gears:
Maybe like this but much, much simpler, and much, much less Dungeons and Dragons:
Maybe like this but less likely to make O.T.O. wankers want to talk to me:
Chevron seven locked:
Who says you need to include the whole rotor in the logo? Including only a portion by zooming in would make the logo less circular and thus less likely to read like a gear.
What comes to mind for me from that is something like this (quick rough):
(The dots are placeholders for shapes of some kind, possibly something rectangular, but circles could work. If you did want to incorporate the name into the logo for some uses, putting the letters in the circles would work)
The letter psi represents/is used for a lot of possibly-relevant-to-your-interests concepts: wave functions in quantum mechanics, the positional states of a qubit in a quantum computer, psionics/ESP, pharmacology and/or pharmacy, the psi-function (return value of a program) in computability theory, etc, etc...
Anyway, it's what occurred to me, and it's simple-ish.
I'd think a combination-lock dial, minus numbers, would be a useful thing, but without the right context, it evokes speedometer/tachometer more than I'd like.
Seems like there should be a way to combine it with an iris, also, but it eludes me.
Last one for now: combination dial, psi, Braille for CODE WORD:
Not quite what you've asked for, but maybe it'll help with ideas?
Apropos to Stargate glyphs, this Stargatesque astrolabe might be of interest, it looks like it might be a fancy cypher tool...
Rotary encoder tracks:
Perhaps these will help inspire:
New astrological symbols: http://www.suberic.net/~dmm/astro/
New alchemical symbols: http://www.suberic.net/~dmm/food/alchemical_food.html
Those alchemical symbols are awesome. Too bad there wasn't one for "ferment".
i just knocked this up:
i'd expect you to space the notches to actually encode 'codeword' in some way of course :)
I thought of you when I saw this "bespoke speakeasy-esque peephole for the lab":
(from this distillery profile, which you've probably already seen)
For values of "bespoke speakeasy-esque peephole" that is equal to "knockoff of like a hundred different instructables" http://www.instructables.com/id/mechanical-iris-1/
Maybe I should just use cons cells.
That last pic makes me think of Dr. No. Can this be the bar?
Or maybe this?
Maybe more inspiration here, from whatever the fuck this is: http://insane-mathematician.tumblr.com/post/56981418354/the-gamma-functions-integral-definition-and-one
Circular Gallifreyan. Gallifreyan Math.