Landor
Associates is the San Francisco-based design firm hired by Lucent to
develop their logo. Before Lucent released the logo, they received this
memo from Landor's Director of Research, Pam Howard. The memo informs them
that the logo's communications "appear to be most relevant to certain Eastern
religions, particularly Japanese Zen Buddhism."
Further, she says, the
new symbol "is an example of a simple mandala, which is
a style of design
in Buddhism and Hinduism."