Nearly 14 months ago we launched our Chinese language website, kemushen.org. At the time, however, we offered no explanation (either in Chinese or English) of the new logo, as important and meaning-filled as it is. Therefore, as we have elsewhere unpacked the meaning of our English logo, here is some explanation of our Chinese one.

In its written form, Chinese is a character-based language, with a meaning being conveyed not primarily by how each character is spoken, but by how it is written. Each character in Chinese is made up of multiple components (a radical and numerous strokes) and conveys one or more meaning.

For Desiring God, we chose the characters 渴慕神.  The official Romanization of the characters is ke mu shen (pronounced kuh moo shun).  渴慕 (Kemu) means "hunger" or "strong desire." And 神 means "God." So the phrase 渴慕神 conveys a desire or extreme longing for God.

For a logo it is important to pay attention not only to the meaning, but to how the characters look and sound together. There is another term for God that is commonly used (上帝 - Shang Di), but we chose not to use it for our Chinese name because 渴慕上帝 doesn’t have as nice a sound as 渴慕神.  And 渴慕神 not only sounds better—it looks better.

When you look at the 渴慕神 logo in the image above, notice that the character 神 is a bit separate from the other two, is in a different font, and is slightly larger.  This is done to ascribe a sense of uniqueness and authority to the character for God.

In Scripture, 神 is often preceded by a space to communicate respect, so we adopted this device. Further, because Chinese writing is also considered an art form (how the character looks is important), we chose a calligraphy font that conveys power and majesty, and also made it larger.

Please continue to pray with us that God will use this site for his glory among Chinese-speakers worldwide.