The Blog

And the 23-year-old student who created it

In 1970, the first Earth Day was about to be celebrated, and a company called Container Corporation of America wanted to do something to honor the moment.

They held a national contest for students to design a symbol for recycling—a pretty new idea at the time, mainly focused on paper since plastic packaging wasn’t widely used yet.

A 23-year-old architecture student named Gary Anderson saw the contest poster (the social media of the day) and decided to enter. He drew three flat arrows looping into a never-ending circle, similar to a shape called a Möbius strip (a symbol of infinite continuity). He also drew inspiration from an elementary school field trip, where he watched newspaper sheets being fed over rollers in the printing process.

His design was easy to understand and simple enough to reproduce at just ¼ inch. It showed the three phases of recycling: collect, process, reuse.

He won the contest and a $2,500 prize. And that was it. No licensing deal, no fame, no fortune. In fact, it didn’t even protect him from being laid off during the recession in the mid-1970s.

CCA placed the symbol in the public domain (the OG of open source!) to encourage its widespread use in promoting recycling efforts.

Today, that little loop of arrows appears on trillions of products, packages, and bins around the world. 

I’ve personally added it to hundreds (thousands?) of designs, and I’ll be the first to admit I never really gave much thought to its origins.

Most people don’t know Gary’s name. He once called himself a “one-hit wonder.” But that one hit became a global icon and remains one of the most recognized designs ever created. Most impressively, it has stayed largely unchanged for 55 years.

In our design critiques we often repeat the mantra: Never tell someone something you could show them instead.

This symbol is a perfect example. No words and therefore no language barrier. Just a clear, universal message that needs no explanation.

So the next time you drop something in the blue bin, give a little nod to Gary and that first Earth Day. And remember that it’s never too early or too late in your career to create a great design that helps shape the world for the better.