About our logo
Our logo is designed to reflect both the tradition of yoga, as well as a unique Aotearoa perspective along with the special bicultural basis of our country’s heritage. While relatively simple in appearance, it contains elements to reflect both the roots and history of yoga, together with what is unique about Aotearoa.
Three key design elements:
(1) The colours
The colours of red and black and white reflect elements from the NZ Maori Flag
- Black – represents Te Korekore, the realm of Potential Being.
- White – represents Te Ao Marama, the realm of Being and Light. It is the Physical World. White also symbolises purity, harmony, enlightenment, and balance.
- Red – represents Te Whei Ao, the realm of Coming into Being. It symbolises the female element. It also represents active, flashing, southern, falling, emergence, forest, land and gestation. Red is Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother, the sustainer of all living things.
(2) The Lotus flower
The lotus flower is an ancient and polyvalent symbol in many Asian cultures and often represented in Yoga graphics. Within the lotus, the white leaf represents purity and devotion, and the red representing ascension, enlightenment, or rebirth.
(3) The Whare
The whare (house) which the lotus is included in plays a role to both pay homage to the ‘home’ of yoga, as well as representing a place were learning and/or meetings others takes place.
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The Yoga New Zealand whanau (extended family), includes both the Hauora Yoga Conference, as well as the Yoga Lunchbox. Both of which share elements of the Yoga New Zealand logo, each with their own unique perspective on it:
- Hauora Yoga Conference has a more prominent whare pūrākau (place of leaning) as the central focus of its logo.
- For The Yoga Lunchbox, the same design element represents a pātaka (storehouse) as the Yoga Lunch box stores a huge range of resources for the Yoga community, and uses Green (Kākāriki) to represent being a ‘treasure’. The apple within the pātaka represents symbolic ‘feeding’ of the mind through these resources and online discussions.
References:
1: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/national-maori-flag
2: https://www.flowermeaning.com/lotus-flower-meaning/
3: https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?&keywords=whare