As I contemplated this trend, I was forced to choose between periods and colons that have both been breeding like rabbits on thoughtful designers’ minds. Last year’s report addressed the use of punctuation associated with wordmarks in clever renditions, and as is usually the case, it was only the initial volley that turned to critical mass for each of our two contenders. As the header makes clear, periods won out, so let’s get to it. That spec at the end of a sentence is only the most basic way to consider this mark that can cap off punctuation, serve as a bullet or strung together as ellipse. It can serve as the opening of a domain or as the closing of a conversation.
It’s also possible the period is no more than a dot that’s floating around text with an altogether different pretext. In the Visible mark, those periods are actually remnants of the missing letters i. A period in literal terms describes an era of time, the division of a school day or a game, that time of the month, or command to STOP. It might be a decimal, and an exclamation mark without it is just an apostrophe. It’s the designer that flips the significance of a word or a name by considering the period outside of traditional context that sharpens the wit of the conversation.