Logos and Pins

Peggy Whitson: born and raised in Iowa; biochemist; retired NASA astronaut, with 665 total days in space; breaker of more astronaut records than we have space to list here. This woman’s place is in space, looking down on the rest of us.

George Washington Carver: an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion; best known for his work with peanuts. He was one of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century.

Nikola Tesla: a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist. He’s been called “the man who invented the Twentieth Century”.

Marie Skłodowska Curie. The first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and the only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields — and that’s just the tip of the radiological iceberg of her accomplishments. We’re pleased to honor her with our 2021 logo.

Like all great organizations, EISEF has a vision — and this year it’s a sharp vision of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

In order to make a big deal of the 60th EISEF, we went with a microscope and one of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s animalcules.

A distinguished, science-y looking man, wearing a lab coat, holding a bubbling test tube. ‘Nuff said. (At least we didn’t go with the mad scientist proposal!…) 

EISEF is always periodic (and uses tables); this year it’s also elementary.

(Safety first: Before working with these elements, first get your Adult Sponsor’s permission, and always work in a suitable lab.) 

Our logo has featured the Earth (in 2014), the moon and the stars (2007). This year we decided to feature the sun. 

We decided this year’s logo had to feature a life science, with a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. 

This year we decided to feature geology, with an inside look Mother Earth herself. 

A great example for science fair students: Benjamin Franklin, one of our nation’s Founding Fathers, conducting an experiment. 

What could be more science-fair-like than a giant strand of DNA, stretching clear across Iowa? 

In 2011 we decided to create a ‘timeless’ logo — one that’s appropriate for any year. We went with a minimalist design: a map of Iowa colored like Iowa’s flag, with our name. 

In 2009, wind turbines in Iowa generated 19,000 gigawatt-hours (#2 in the U.S.), 14% of the state’s electricity (#1 in the U.S.). A great engineering marvel to commemorate on our logo. 

Iowa produces more pork than any other state, so for years we’ve thought about incorporating a pig into our logo. Our designer showed us this whimsical design, and most of us immediately fell in love with it. 

The first Eastern Iowa Science Fair was in 1960. 2009 marked our 50th fair. We figured an all-gold logo was appropriate for the occasion. 

The hot topic that year was biofuels, especially ethanol made from corn. What could be more topical than an ear of corn as a fuel pump? 

We hadn’t done a space theme since 2001, and observing the skies with a telescope is good science. Also, this logo let us honor Iowa’s own space researcher James Van Allen, who died in August 2006. 

A human figure, female, dressed as a scientist, working in a laboratory—we found a lot to like about this year’s logo. 

We’re the Eastern Iowa Science and Engineering Fair. This year we decided it was high time to commemorate the engineering part of our name. 

In past years we had featured nuclear physics, space exploration, electronics, and biotechnology. This seemed like a good year for chemistry and laboratory experimentation. 

For a couple of years, the students we sent to the International Fairs had been requesting an ear of corn on the pin. This year, we decided to oblige them. We told ourselves that it symbolized Iowa’s biotechnology and agronomy.

Our designer showed us a half-dozen possible pin designs, and we instantly fell in love with this circuit-board motif.