Based on the eyes, mind, mission and vision of “the Fisherman of Halicarnassus” Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, Bodrum Maritime Museum wants to make sense of the word “merhaba” and transfer it to a graphic language, and to use the word “merhaba” as a logo in the representation of the events held in his name every year on his birthday. For this purpose, it is opening the “International Merhaba Day Logo Design Contest” under the main sponsorship of Bilgi Publishing House.
Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı is commemorated in Bodrum, where he came as exile in 1925, by the Bodrum Maritime Museum, where his private collection is located, and the Bodrum Municipality, to which he is affiliated, with various events twice a year. Commemoration programs take place on April 17, his birth anniversary, and October 13, his death anniversary. Merhaba Day International Logo Contest will be announced on April 17, 2023, the 133rd birthday of the Fisherman of Halicarnassus, on Merhaba Day, and the logo to be chosen as a result of the competition is intended to be used on April 17 Merhaba Day every year.
The museum invites graphic designers from all over the world to symbolize this mime phrase of Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, who is a cover artist as well as a famous writer! Although Balıkçı was known for his love for Bodrum and his literary works, he had stepped into the Ottoman Porte as a painter before all this. He has done covers and illustrations for books and magazines. The fine writing and illustration of our media world was in the hands of these experienced artisans. The painters of the Ottoman Porte, which we can call the pioneers of today’s graphic designers, have been the actors of the transition from craft to design by shaping our visual memory for many years. As part of this history, Balıkçı added not only words but also pictures to our collective memory.