Logo for the Open Siddur Project, by Aharon Varady (PresentTense 2009)

This is the Open Siddur Project logo, with twelve delineated colors representing the twelve shevatim (tribes) and mazalot (constellations) — a reference to the diversity of the remnant of the Israelite people and the international Jewish community in its expressions of prayer. The spectrum of colors evokes the divine canopy of peace protecting the earth after the covenant with Noaḥ that humanity never let itself become as depraved as the predatory dor hamabul (generation of the flood). The colorwheel itself is derived from Johannes Itten’s Farbkreis (“color wheel” 1961) and is a nod to both the Arts & Crafts movement of William Morris and its development by the Bauhaus movement in Weimar Germany.

The circle here is a reference to the form of Sandalfon, the angel of prayer, who daily weaves the prayers of the world into a wreath crown that is delivered to Hashem during the Qedushah.^[1] Chagigah 13b.4. Also find Rabbi Dr. Arthur Green’s Keter: The Crown of God in Early Jewish Mysticism (1997).  As the Latin letter ‘O’, the circle also stands for the word ‘Open’ in connection to the open-source principle and licensing framework undergirding this project, and in reciprocity to the divine project of giving through the renewal of creation in every moment (per Psalms 145:16).

The Hebrew letters forming the word סידוּר (siddur, an arrangement of prayers, i.e. a prayerbook) appear inside the circle. The text appears here and elsewhere with various styles of Hebrew typography. In the reference image below, the type is sourced from the Times New Roman digital font.