What is the S that everyone draws?
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Hoody
What was the one thing back in elementary and middle school that you did when you were bored? It might have involved drawing an "S" symbol on everything you can draw on and we now know the origins of what the symbol means! The "S" symbol is technically called the "Universal S" and a Swedish YouTuber did over FIVE YEARS of research to prove its origins and what it represents. Apparently it all started with clothing brand,
Stussy, back in the 1980s or with early graffiti. Check out the video below to form your own opinion on how it happened and at least learn how to draw the symbol!
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Sponsored ContentBefore iPhones and iPads were even a twinkle in Steve Jobs’ eye, we had highlighters, coloured gel pens and ‘fancy paper’ to keep us occupied when fourth class Irish got too boring to handle. If you were a doodler in school, your copy books were no doubt covered with one thing in particular: that blocky ‘S’ that everyone seemed to love. Before you knew how to draw it, it looked incredibly complex, but once you realised it was just two sets of three parallel lines, joined diagonally and capped off with two pointy bits, you were drawing it EVERYWHERE.
In an effort to shed some light on the mystery ‘S’, Julian Morgans from Vice Australia (yep, it was a thing Down Under as well), recently launched a mini-investigation into its origins, and what he found was pretty interesting. First up: superheroes. Contrary to what you might have believed, that ‘S’ design is not a reconstruction of the Superman shield, at least not according to the folks at DC Comics, who told Julian that Clark Kent’s logo “has a lot of open space and almost never connects to itself.” Ah. Other folks postulated that the design was inspired by Stussy, a Californian surf brand that was über-cool back in the Nineties, but again the theory fails, because apparently the ‘S’ long pre-dates Stussy’s 1980 launch.  Here comes the big reveal, though. Rather than trying to re-create old logos, it turns out that kids may have just been drawing the ‘S’ simply because it was a) fun and b) similar to a Möbius strip, that is, a looped shape, like the eternity symbol. That’s according to Paul Cobley, a language and media professor from Middlesex University in London, who said the designs “perpetual flow” was most likely what made it so popular with kids. So there you have it. You might have thought you were being all kinds of cool by decorating your pages with Super S designs, but really you were just another Möbius strip-obsessed kid. Tags:
Have your sayMore like thisWhy did everyone draw the s thing?What's That 'S' Thing Everyone Drew in School? "The reason kids go through this is probably because it's a Moebius strip," he said, referring to the sort of looped one-surface shapes M. C. Escher was fond of drawing. "It can't be drawn continuously, but it does have a perpetual flow."
What did the S symbol mean?The "S" symbol is technically called the "Universal S" and a Swedish YouTuber did over FIVE YEARS of research to prove its origins and what it represents. Apparently it all started with clothing brand, Stussy, back in the 1980s or with early graffiti.
Where is the s drawing from?Despite its prevalence across the globe and throughout the 20th century, the origin stories for the “S” remain shrouded in mystery. Some believe it is derived from Los Angeles gang culture. Others point to various bands that may have used it in their logos. Finally, it may just be a reworked infinity symbol.
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