The keen Mac cultists among you will already know the story behind the cloverleaf Command symbol (⌘) but for those of you who don’t, this photo (by cogdogblog on Flickr, used under CC license) tells the story rather well.
The ⌘ was discovered for Apple by bitmap artist Susan Kare in a dictionary of symbols, where it was said to be commonly used in Scandinavia to identify places of interest or camp sites.
Cogdogblog’s photo shows the symbol alive and well in Iceland, 1300 miles or so away from Stockholm but culturally close nonetheless.
Where else has the command symbol been spotted? In a jellyfish. In a bakery. In a bedroom. If you’ve seen it anywhere interesting, do let us know.
16 responses to “A Commanding Sight In Iceland”
⌘ is comonly used all over europe “to identify places of interest”. usually on brown background.
They use the same signs in Sweden for ‘interesting points for tourists’:
http://blog.tice.de/beitrag.ph…
And in Norway, we have them placed under water also :-)
http://www.norway.org.uk/cultu…
And on motorway intersections too…
http://content.answers.com/mai…
The logo is adorned on the football shirts of Histon FC in England.
http://www.histonfc.co.uk/imag…
I don’t think it has anything to do with a Swedish campground – if this was so, you would expect to find it here: http://www.camping.se/template…. As I understand it, the meaning is any kind of tourist attraction. I always thought it was meant to resemble a castle seen from above.
This sign is used in Lithuania to denote places of interest as well. Maybe in other Baltic states too.
You can find it even in street art XD
http://www.flickr.com/photos/c…
is it meant as a weapon??? :P