BAMOS Vol 31 Special Issue October 2018 Bulletin Vol 31 Special Issue 01 2018 | Page 34

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BAMOS
Special Issue
The mystery of the logo mouse
Matthias Tomczak
At last year’s AMOS 30th Anniversary Symposium “Science for
Life” David Karoly presented a brief summary of the transition
from the Royal Meteorological Society (Australian branch) to
AMOS. One of the important steps in the establishment of AMOS
was the design of a logo, which was put to AMOS members in
the form of a competition.
David’s presentation included several competition entries.
Among the various designs one particular entry, which included
a mouse under a lighting strike, mystified the presenter and the
audience. As the author of that particular design I was asked to
report its history and the reasoning behind it, and I am happy
to oblige.
Long before the AMOS name became adopted in Australia it
was already famous around the world. Amos was a poor but
intelligent church mouse who took up residence with Benjamin
Franklin and helped him to establish himself. Amos invented
bifocal glasses, an improved stove (which regrettably became
known not as the Amos stove but as the Franklin stove), the
lightning rod and many other useful contraptions. Although
there is no conclusive documentation, it is also rumoured that
he discovered and mapped the Gulf Stream. The remarkable life
of this brilliant mouse has been documented in the Walt Disney
short Ben and Me of 1953, which won an Academy Award and
was reissued on DVD in 2012. It can also be watched at https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1X6l99y23Y.
The particular episode that forms the basis of my logo design
is the one where Amos is sent up into the sky with a kite as
roving reporter for Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette during a
thunderstorm. Having come down to earth after a perilous
journey and loaded with static electricity he decides to leave
Franklin, throwing sparks in all directions whenever he steps
through a puddle. My logo tries to capture the moment, with
Amos in a puddle (oceanography) threatened by lightning
(meteorology).
Regrettably my design was not chosen as the winner, but I was
given a pound of cheese as consolation prize.