In the past 10 years, a new image joined the bumper sticker pantheon, right next to gratuitous honor student boasts and outdated political endorsements: Coexist.
A smorgasbord of religious and political signifiers, with a few seemingly random symbols thrown in for good measure, it's become its own symbol of a banal, graphically incoherent 21st-century hippie.
But the Coexist logo wasn't always just a trip to the semiotic bargain bin. At one time, it was vested with powerful design and real meaning. It's also the center of a long battle over who owns it and what it really means.
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