20th ANNIVERSARY of the LEONARD COHEN FILES

Our Logo Design Competition --
Win a Memento with Leonard's Personal Inscription to YOU!

Read about the history of The Files here

In September, The Leonard Cohen Files will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Twenty years ago the world wide web was still in its pioneering years; the first households and offices had gotten connected, and every one was thinking how to make use of this new exciting channel. With a history of two decades, The Files is one of the oldest sites still online that is dedicated to an artist. I launched the Files with the technical help of our son, Rauli. It was more or less a test to find out how to program a website and to see what happened when it was finally online. We didn’t have any bigger expectations or plans for the future. The avalanche of emails and information provided for The Files took us by surprise, and the site began to grow.

An essential step came two years later when Leonard made contact and offered to help by sending me previously unpublished material. At that time he was living at the Zen Center on Mt Baldy. The Center had one telephone line that also could be used for internet connection through a very slow dial-up modem.

Today we have a whole community gathered around Leonard’s work, several sites and Facebook pages dedicated to Leonard, and of course our Forum. It was launched in 2002 but was preceded by our Message Board and Chatroom. Before those, in the very beginning, we used the Usenet group called Leonard Cohen Newsgroup which was created after an email list.

The idea of having real-life get-togethers, instead of 'just' browsing in the cyber-space, was first born in the Newsgroup . Our first gathering was in Lincoln, UK, in 1998, followed by the biennial, formally organized LC Events (since 2000, with the initial one in Montreal), and the informal Hydra Meetups, since 2005 (a follow-up to the Hydra Event in 2002). A more recent new activity created by our Forum members is The Walking Weekend. This October we will have the fourth one In Vilaudrau, Catalonia, near Barcelona.

Many friendships (and a dozen marriages) have been established through our community; I’d even say that all those dear friends Eija and I have made throughout the years have given me the incentive to keep going with the websites and our other activities. Thanks to our members, our happenings, and Leonard’s tours, we have collected so many fond memories from a multitude of countries. Leonard has continued to contribute to the website throughout these many years, and we had the privilege to be the first to announce his return to touring in 2008. Thanks to Leonard and his management, we were also able to arrange a pre-sale for every concert during his world tours in 2008-2013.

To celebrate these 20 years, we now announce a competition. We ask you to design a new logo for The Files and Forum. A logo that can be used on the websites, as well as in the Event booklets, t-shirts, and other locations.

The following are the competition rules:

1) Feel free to use text, photos and drawings of your own design. However, the text “The Leonard Cohen Files & Forum” must be included.

2) If you use a photo or drawing that is not your own, you must first obtain permission from the photographer or artist. However, photos taken by Eija and me can be freely used (cohen.1g.fi/kuvat).

3) The size of the logo file has to be 1 MB or more, to ensure good printing quality regardless of size. A jpg is recommended; but a pdf is also possible.

4) Use as many colours as you like (simply b&w is okay, too)

5) All logos sent to this competition become the property of The Leonard Cohen Files, and can be used for our campaigns. The author will be credited when applicable. We may also use more than one logo in the future. A selection of the logos sent to the competition will be permanently posted on the Files.

6) The logos must be sent to me at

by August 27, 2015. The results will be announced on our 20th anniversary day, September 3, 2015. Please include your full name, email address, and postal address.

7) Any questions you may have will be answered on The Forum in this thread

We also have some great prizes!

1) The winner (the best logo chosen by your webmaster) will get a book or booklet signed and dedicated to the winner by Leonard.

2-3) Original tour T-shirt or another rare LC item (will be discussed with the winners)

Extra prize: a book or booklet signed and dedicated by Leonard. All logos sent to our competition are eligible for the allotment of this prize.

Looking forward to seeing your logos!!

Jarkko