{ "scope": "How the drawings of the Bend Emblem were compared, and what each comparison may be read to mean. A score is resemblance between two drawings; it is not descent, common authorship, or evidence that one was copied from the other. Only the ties marked \"documented\" are descent, and both of them are.", "board": "/emblems/", "families": "/emblems/index.json", "control": { "iou": 0.975, "note": "Two independent digitisations of the same July 1912 advertisement. Their score is the noise floor: no pair of genuinely different drawings should be read as 'the same artwork' above it without other evidence." }, "stability": { "note": "Each pair re-measured at four device cuts. A pair marked stable keeps its score wherever the device is cut, so the score is about the lettering. An unstable pair is dominated by how much ring falls inside the cut, and its single score at the default setting must not be read as a statement about letterform. A pair whose two members are both fixed by a hand-set word box cannot move at all, and is marked untested rather than allowed to pass vacuously.", "interiors": [ 0.96, 0.9, 0.84, 0.78 ], "stableSpread": 0.05, "pairs": 1081, "stable": 170 }, "groups": [ { "id": "period-drawing", "title": "The drawing the club used, and what holds with it", "description": "The 1912 and 1916 newspaper impressions score 0.930 against each other and barely move when the device is cut differently — the same printing cut, four years apart, just below the 0.975 that two scans of one printing reach. The Bulletin’s own business directory masthead of February 1939 joins them at 0.887 against 1912 and 0.861 against 1916, holding within 0.009 and 0.023 across every cut: the tightest reading anything between 1917 and 2001 has produced, and still short of the same artwork. The museum’s June 2020 drawing sits at about 0.69 against 1912 and 1916, steadily.\n\nThis is a chain rather than a circle, and the shape of it is worth saying plainly: 1939 and the museum’s 2020 drawing hold with the two period impressions but not with each other — that pair runs 0.612 to 0.700 and crosses the grouping threshold depending on where the device is cut. They are shown together because each of them holds with the 1912 cut, which is what this group claims and all it claims.", "specimens": [ "bb-1912-07-03", "news-1916-11-22-9", "bb-1939-02-01-6", "dhs-homesteader-2020-06" ] }, { "id": "one-artwork-twice", "title": "Two files, one artwork", "description": "The gold roundel on Downtown Bend’s history page and the museum’s February 2012 artwork score 0.962 against each other and hold that score at every device cut. Two files of one drawing, and the museum is the earlier known holder of it. A third file sat here until 2026-09-14: a gold image found on the internet in March 2022, which measures with these two at 0.954 to 0.959. It is now kept as a reference rather than as a specimen, because where it was found says nothing about where the drawing came from, and a comparison group is a claim about the collection.", "specimens": [ "dbba-common-graphic", "dhs-2012-emblem" ] }, { "id": "measured-apart", "title": "Measured, and standing alone", "description": "Each of these was measured and joins no stable cluster at the global cut. They are not a group; they are 32 separate drawings shown together because that is what one of the two measurements says. Read the character matrix for what each one is made of, and the letter cut for how alike a pair is once the ring is out of the way. Eight were added on 16 September 2026 from the Meta sweep, and not one of them made a stable pair at or above the threshold with anything already here — including the City’s own current mark against the City’s own 2023 neighborhood artwork, which the character matrix places in the same family. Two more were added the same day from the outsized-issue sweep: the Bulletin’s directory masthead as printed on 1 September 1943 and on 24 August 1949. Both are the same block as the 1939 plate, which the character matrix reads identically in all twelve states, and neither scores above 0.52 against anything on file — the 1939 plate included, at 0.557 on the letters. That disagreement is the record: ink weight is what the shape measurement cannot see past, and this masthead is the drawing the handbook already names for it. The count in this sentence had said 29 while the list held 30; it is counted from the list now.", "specimens": [ "bb-1917-06-28-2", "bb-1925-09-19-32", "news-1917-02-20-2", "dbba-badge-2018", "bend-store-classic", "deschutes-born-in-bend", "okane-glass-2012", "bend-dont-break-it", "bend-contracting", "city-bend-agency", "city-neighborhoods-2023", "bend-brew-wear-2011", "bend-rubber-stamp", "visit-bend-2022", "dbba-2011-circle", "news-1953-06-16-18", "visitbend-2003-header", "dbba-2006-bug", "city-landscape-2011", "visitbend-2014-logo", "city-standalone-2016", "dhm-printed-leaves", "visitbend-2013-disc", "fred-real-estate-disc-2016", "city-chambers-disc", "city-mark-2026", "tin-pan-alley-panel", "carstickers-arched-2020", "vintage-bend-profile", "city-centennial-2005", "bb-1943-09-01-7", "bb-1949-08-24-12", "bend-store-2026-disc" ] }, { "id": "not-measurable", "title": "Too small, or not a circle", "description": "These belong in the collection but cannot be compared from the images on hand. Five are reproduced too small to threshold into letters — the Chamber’s 2001 roundel carries 21 px of letter, the 2002 page header 37, the City’s landscape badges 19 and 14 — which is a fact about the captures, not about the drawings. Two are not circular devices at all. The Bulletin’s 1950 masthead is inked until its counters have closed, which is a fact about that printing and not about the block. And one, the Bend Park Company’s own advertisement of February 1917, is here for a subtler reason: at 112 px every reading it gives against a real impression moves with the cut, and the only steady one it produces is against this project’s own reconstruction of the 1912 drawing — which says that a clean render compares consistently, and nothing at all about 1917. The tenth, added 16 September 2026, is not too small at all: the City's mark carved into a pumpkin is 540 px across, and no threshold separates a knife's edge from the rind's own lighting. Its characters are read by eye, which needs no polarity.", "specimens": [ "bb-1950-08-16-10", "bb-1917-02-08-3", "chamber-2001-emblem", "visitbend-2002-header", "dhs-toast-2020", "roadman-seize-the-day", "sunstone-heart-charm", "city-landscape-seal", "city-landscape-2002", "city-bend-bug-2018", "outback-facility-sign" ] } ], "ties": [ { "index": 0, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-0", "kind": "documented", "label": "Traced", "basis": "Traced from the July 3 newspaper specimen, with the documented central-detail omission.", "test": null, "from": "bb-1912-07-03", "to": "project-faithful", "cites": [] }, { "index": 1, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-1", "kind": "documented", "label": "Redrawn", "basis": "A new drawing based on the 1912 specimen, with deliberate optical changes.", "test": null, "from": "bb-1912-07-03", "to": "project-adaptation", "cites": [] }, { "index": 2, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-2", "kind": "measured", "label": "One artwork, two files", "basis": "The museum’s February 2012 file and the roundel on Downtown Bend’s history page score 0.962 against each other and hold that score at every device cut. Which file came first is not measurable.", "test": null, "from": "dhs-2012-emblem", "to": "dbba-common-graphic", "cites": [] }, { "index": 3, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-3", "kind": "hypothesis", "label": "Redrawn for the Chamber?", "basis": "The Chamber’s 1953 emblem scores about 0.69 against both period impressions at every cut: the same family, far below the 0.975 control, so a redrawing rather than the same block. Whether whoever drew it had an impression in front of them is unknown.", "test": "Part of this has now been run: the Bulletin’s outsized editions were swept for round devices and the paper’s own 1939 directory masthead came out of it, which is a surviving impression in the gap and measures far closer to 1912 than the Chamber’s drawing does. What remains is the sweep’s unopened middle — about 170 outsized issues between 1917 and 1952 are still unswept, and the directory’s own run is sampled at nine dates out of roughly 1,700 — and, for this edge specifically, anything that puts a drawing in the Chamber’s hands rather than the newspaper’s.", "from": "bb-1912-07-03", "to": "news-1953-06-16-18", "cites": [] }, { "index": 4, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-4", "kind": "hypothesis", "label": "Drawn from the glass?", "basis": "The glass is the only emblem continuously in public view between 1953 and 2001, on the corner of Bond and Oregon, and it is narrow-lettered like the bureau’s roundel. Anyone redrawing the emblem around 2000 without a 1912 newspaper had the window and little else.", "test": "A square-on photograph of every O’Kane transom, entered into the measurement and read at the letters cut against the 2001 roundel, plus the 1985 fabrication record from Bend Stained Glass’s successor saying which panes are 1916 glass.", "from": "okane-glass-2012", "to": "chamber-2001-emblem", "cites": [] }, { "index": 5, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-5", "kind": "hypothesis", "label": "The same drawing, one letter changed?", "basis": "Every narrow drawing on hand, civic and commercial, carries a notched E and a notched B at the same height. The only difference that is not weight, tilt or colour is the third letter: arched in the civic uses, a capital N in the commercial ones.", "test": "Downtown Bend’s own answer to who made its earliest file and from what, and the artwork attached to the 2011 LogoTournament brief, which the public contest page does not carry. Either would show whether the capital N was cut into an existing drawing.", "from": "chamber-2001-emblem", "to": "dbba-2011-circle", "cites": [] }, { "index": 6, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-6", "kind": "hypothesis", "label": "Redrawn from the 1912 or 1916 cut?", "basis": "Every character of the museum’s drawing matches the period impressions - three-armed E, capital N, letters to the edge - and none matches the narrow families. It scores 0.70 against the 1912 cut, which is family rather than copy.", "test": "The Deschutes Historical Museum’s source file and its author, asked of the museum directly. A working file with a 1912 or 1916 scan under it would settle a direction the measurement cannot, and the museum is the first known holder.", "from": "bb-1912-07-03", "to": "dhs-2012-emblem", "cites": [] }, { "index": 7, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-7", "kind": "measured", "label": "0.91 at the letters cut", "basis": "Read at the smaller of the two drawings’ own letter cuts, where neither mask holds a ring, these two agree at 0.91. At the global cut the same pair scores 0.37, which is a number about two rings. Neither score says which drawing came first.", "test": null, "from": "dbba-2006-bug", "to": "bend-store-classic", "cites": [] }, { "index": 8, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-8", "kind": "measured", "label": "0.93 at the letters cut", "basis": "Read at the smaller of the two drawings’ own letter cuts, where neither mask holds a ring, these two agree at 0.93. At the global cut the same pair scores 0.39, which is a number about two rings. Neither score says which drawing came first.", "test": null, "from": "dbba-2006-bug", "to": "deschutes-born-in-bend", "cites": [] }, { "index": 9, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-9", "kind": "measured", "label": "0.87 at the letters cut", "basis": "Read at the smaller of the two drawings’ own letter cuts, where neither mask holds a ring, these two agree at 0.87. At the global cut the same pair scores 0.35, which is a number about two rings. Neither score says which drawing came first.", "test": null, "from": "dbba-2006-bug", "to": "dbba-2011-circle", "cites": [] }, { "index": 10, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-10", "kind": "measured", "label": "0.93 at the letters cut", "basis": "Read at the smaller of the two drawings’ own letter cuts, where neither mask holds a ring, these two agree at 0.93. At the global cut the same pair scores 0.46, which is a number about two rings. Neither score says which drawing came first.", "test": null, "from": "city-standalone-2016", "to": "city-bend-agency", "cites": [] }, { "index": 11, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-11", "kind": "hypothesis", "label": "Visit Bend takes the commercial file?", "basis": "Visit Bend carried the arched-n roundel from 2001 to at least 2008 and the capital-N drawing by March 2014. Every character of its 2014 roundel matches the file Downtown Bend held in 2006, and the bureau has never published a statement about either drawing.", "test": "Visit Bend’s own answer to who drew the mark it adopted, and the artwork file behind the 2014 site theme. The captures between 2008 and 2014 carry the roundel too small to read, so the web cannot close this on its own.", "from": "dbba-2006-bug", "to": "visitbend-2014-logo", "cites": [] }, { "index": 12, "url": "https://bendemblem.com/emblems/method/#tie-12", "kind": "measured", "label": "0.88, steady at every cut", "basis": "The 1939 directory masthead scores 0.8825 to 0.8916 against the July 1912 advertisement across every device cut — a spread of 0.009, the tightest any pair inside the 1917 to 2001 gap has held. The same-artwork band here is the 0.975 control and the 0.930 the 1916 reprint reaches, so this is the construction and not the block: a drawing of the same letters, not an impression of the same cut.", "test": null, "from": "bb-1912-07-03", "to": "bb-1939-02-01-6", "cites": [] } ], "excluded": [ { "id": "bb-1917-02-08-3", "reason": "About 112 px across, and the measurement it produces is not about the drawing. Every pair with a real impression moves with the cut - 0.45 to 0.71 against the 1912 advertisement, 0.44 to 0.78 against the 1939 masthead - while the one pair that holds still is with this project’s own reconstruction of the 1912 cut, at 0.67 to 0.72. A clean modern render compares consistently because it is clean, not because the 1917 advertisement is that drawing, and publishing a cluster that puts a 1917 newspaper beside a 2026 SVG would tell a reader something untrue. Read by eye instead; the characters are in the matrix.", "read": { "file": "archive/online-research/2026-09-14-bend-park-1917/1917-02-08-seq3-device-native.jpg", "box": [ 10, 11, 113, 112 ], "figure": "light", "note": "The device in the Bend Park Company’s advertisement of 8 February 1917, 112 px across." }, "picture": "whole", "pictureNote": "The whole weekly advertisement column, three notices deep; the disc is one line of it.", "letterHeightPx": 112, "letterWidthPx": 28.2, "letterSizeBasis": "the letters alone, from a hand-set box at the filed image's own resolution" }, { "id": "bb-1950-08-16-10", "reason": "The same masthead cut as 1939, printed so heavily that the counters have closed. Declared light, like every other impression of this device, its mask is broken slivers and scores 0.04 against the 1939 printing; declared dark it becomes a near-solid disc and scores 0.81 against the 1953 Chamber drawing - agreement earned by being a blob, not by being that drawing. Neither number is about the drawing, so it is read by eye and not measured.", "read": { "file": "archive/online-research/2026-09-14-directory-masthead/1950-08-16-seq10-device-native.jpg", "box": [ 5, 10, 148, 147 ], "figure": "light", "note": "The device at the head of the directory on 16 August 1950, 148 px across on the native scan." }, "picture": "whole", "pictureNote": "The whole WHO'S WHO IN BEND masthead strip, with a disc at each end of it.", "letterHeightPx": 147, "letterWidthPx": 37, "letterSizeBasis": "the letters alone, from a hand-set box at the filed image's own resolution" }, { "id": "chamber-2001-emblem", "reason": "The roundel is about 37 px across in the filed capture of the Chamber's 2001 page. Nothing thresholds into letters at that size; the record's value is its date, not its geometry.", "read": { "file": "archive/online-research/2026-09-11-tier-a/chamber-2001-emblem.jpg", "box": [ 34, 8, 21, 21 ], "figure": "dark", "note": "The letters alone, inside the double ring. 21 px tall, about 5 px to a letter." }, "picture": "whole", "pictureNote": "A web page's header rule, the disc five pixels of letter in the middle of it.", "letterHeightPx": 21, "letterWidthPx": 5.2, "letterSizeBasis": "the letters alone, from a hand-set box at the filed image's own resolution" }, { "id": "city-bend-bug-2018", "reason": "Carved into a pumpkin. The carving's contrast against the rind is weaker than the rind's own lighting gradient, so no threshold separates letters from fruit: declared light the mask is the lit half of the pumpkin, declared near-white it is a handful of specks. Size is not the reason — the carving is 540 px across, the largest rendering of the City's construction in this archive — and a character read by eye needs no polarity.", "read": { "file": "archive/online-research/2026-09-16-muse-meta-sweep/export/ig_cob_2018-10-30_pumpkin-bug.jpg", "box": [ 370, 360, 420, 420 ], "figure": "light", "note": "The carved letters alone, inside the carved ring, at the post's own resolution." }, "letterHeightPx": 420, "letterWidthPx": 105, "letterSizeBasis": "the letters alone, from a hand-set box at the filed image's own resolution" }, { "id": "city-landscape-2002", "reason": "The roundel in the badge’s bottom cartouche is about 15 px across in the filed capture. Nothing thresholds into letters at that size, and the badge itself is a rectangle rather than a circular device.", "read": { "file": "archive/online-research/2026-09-14-lineage-captures/logo2002.jpg", "box": [ 51, 161, 16, 14 ], "figure": "dark", "note": "The roundel alone, at the foot of the badge. Fifteen pixels; the enlargement shows a gold disc and no letters." }, "picture": "whole", "pictureNote": "The whole tall landscape badge: mountain, river and a date, with the roundel in the cartouche at its foot.", "letterHeightPx": 14, "letterWidthPx": 4, "letterSizeBasis": "the letters alone, from a hand-set box at the filed image's own resolution" }, { "id": "city-landscape-seal", "reason": "A vertical rectangular badge with an arched BEND over a landscape, not a circular device. The roundel in its bottom cartouche is 79 px on a 600 dpi render of the filed PDF - enough to read by eye, which is what the character matrix does, and not enough to measure against drawings ten times its size.", "read": { "file": "archive/online-research/2026-09-11/city-landscape-seal-device-600dpi.png", "box": [ 24, 24, 79, 79 ], "figure": "dark", "note": "The roundel in the badge’s bottom cartouche, re-rendered from the filed PDF at 600 dpi where it is 79 px rather than the 19 px the 144 dpi display render gave. The badge’s own arched BEND over the landscape is type, not this emblem, and is not what is scored." }, "picture": "whole", "pictureNote": "The same tall landscape badge as the 2002 capture, at its own size.", "letterHeightPx": 79, "letterWidthPx": 19.8, "letterSizeBasis": "the letters alone, from a hand-set box at the filed image's own resolution" }, { "id": "dhs-toast-2020", "reason": "The filed image is the printed toast; the emblem on it is too small to threshold.", "read": { "file": "archive/online-research/2026-09-10/dhs-2020-09-page-4.webp", "box": [ 185, 499, 19, 19 ], "figure": "light", "note": "The emblem printed at the foot of the toast card. 19 px and out of focus; both sides of the threshold are noise." }, "picture": "whole", "pictureNote": "The whole printed card, four lines of a toast, with the disc under them at nineteen pixels.", "letterHeightPx": 19, "letterWidthPx": 4.8, "letterSizeBasis": "the letters alone, from a hand-set box at the filed image's own resolution" }, { "id": "outback-facility-sign", "reason": "The letters are cut in relief and their groove throws a shadow, so what thresholds as ink is the letter plus a crescent of shade on one side of it. The measurement then reports the light. Its principal axis came out at −53 degrees on a word 1.03 wide for 1 tall, which is the artefact the tilt rule exists to catch, and the angle moved to −51, −37 and −21 as the device box was nudged by six pixels: an axis that moves with the crop is the crop's. The ring behaves the same way, re-entering the mask at three of the five cuts. Read by eye instead; the characters are in the matrix and the arched third letter is not in doubt.", "read": { "file": "archive/online-research/2026-09-16-muse-meta-sweep/export/leads/lead2_outback-entrance-sign.jpg", "box": [ 128, 214, 130, 130 ], "figure": "dark", "note": "The letters alone, inside the relief ring, at the frame's own resolution." }, "letterHeightPx": 130, "letterWidthPx": 32.5, "letterSizeBasis": "the letters alone, from a hand-set box at the filed image's own resolution" }, { "id": "roadman-seize-the-day", "reason": "Painted lettering inside a carved sun; the letters cannot be separated from the surrounding decoration.", "read": { "file": "archive/online-research/2026-09-10/roadman-2017.jpg", "box": [ 1110, 630, 270, 260 ], "figure": null, "note": "The letters occupy 270 x 260 px of the photograph, which is ample. No figure polarity is declarable: rendering both sides gives a solid blob one way and an outline the other, because the letters are carved in the same material as the sun around them. Size is not what stops this reading." }, "letterHeightPx": 260, "letterWidthPx": 67.5, "letterSizeBasis": "the hand-set letter box; no threshold separates these letters from the carving around them" }, { "id": "sunstone-heart-charm", "reason": "The pendant is heart-shaped, not a roundel. Excluding it is itself the finding: this is an adaptation that abandons the circle.", "read": { "file": "archive/online-research/2026-09-11/sunstone-heart-close.jpg", "box": [ 140, 275, 160, 90 ], "figure": "dark", "note": "The letters on the pendant. Not inside a ring, because the pendant is a heart." }, "letterHeightPx": 90, "letterWidthPx": 39.2, "letterSizeBasis": "the letters alone, from a hand-set box at the filed image's own resolution" }, { "id": "visitbend-2002-header", "reason": "The roundel is about 35 px across at the left of the filed 2002 page header, and the detector cannot even fit a circle to it.", "read": { "file": "archive/online-research/2026-09-11-tier-a/visitbend-2002-header.gif", "box": [ 53, 16, 37, 37 ], "figure": "dark", "note": "The letters alone, inside the double ring, from the 601 px capture rather than the 900 px render of it." }, "picture": "whole", "pictureNote": "The whole page header bar, the roundel a gold dot at one end of it.", "letterHeightPx": 37, "letterWidthPx": 9.2, "letterSizeBasis": "the letters alone, from a hand-set box at the filed image's own resolution" } ], "references": [ { "id": "grayson-emblems-2022-black", "label": "Grayson Graham collection, black, 2022", "holder": "Grayson Graham collection", "role": "reference", "page": "https://bendemblem.com/archive/grayson-emblems-2022/" }, { "id": "grayson-emblems-2022-gold", "label": "Grayson Graham collection, gold, 2022", "holder": "Grayson Graham collection", "role": "reference", "page": "https://bendemblem.com/archive/grayson-emblems-2022/" }, { "id": "chatgpt-reference-2026", "label": "Modernisation reference made with ChatGPT, 2026", "holder": "Grayson Graham collection", "role": "reference", "page": "https://bendemblem.com/archive/chatgpt-reference-2026/" }, { "id": "savage-badge", "label": "Downtown Bend badge, monochrome portfolio version", "holder": "Savage Skye Design", "role": "reference", "page": "https://bendemblem.com/archive/savage-badge/" } ], "counts": { "cells": 58, "families": 7, "constructions": 3, "inUse": 47, "measured": 47, "excluded": 11, "plates": 47, "inUsePlates": 44, "appearances": 79 } }