Animo

This is my ANIMO logo. I thought you might be interested in how it came about. ANIMO -Asociación Nacional de Investigación Mojácar. We had a contest of my disabled students to come up with a logo and got lots of suggestions. Animo in Spanish also means to caress, love, encourage and animate someone so we felt it was appropriate; we just had to come up with the right words to spell ANIMO.
The word-design was eventually made by Lenox, on the spur of the moment at the lawyer's office, when he turned the letter 'a' into a wheelchair. Because it dealt with Animal Assisted Therapy, especially dogs and horses, we wanted them to show. The little man in the middle is the symbol of our town, the Indalo. It is a god holding up a rainbow, or so they say, and was found in a cave painting near here. The horse-shoe is upside down for most of you but that is because here in Spain they believe that the horse-shoe should go that way because it takes the luck from the ground and then returns it, as opposed to the way we think that if it goes the other way the luck will stay in. There are seven studs in the shoe which is very important for the Spaniards. All horse-shoes should have seven holes for luck. I am very pleased with the logo and it has served us well. I don't think anything else could visually describe what we did and how we felt as well as this. 'Animo' - as in 'cheer up!' - is one of the most common words that I heard when I was in the hospital. Everyone from the janitor to the doctors would say 'animo' when I went for operations or tests or anywhere.