Orbs, balls, globes, planets, moons, and any other object of a spherical nature have a special gravitational attraction to designers. And exactly who’s orbiting who may still be up for consideration. Double Os is really about relationships and not just terrestrial and lunar. It’s about relationships–good, bad, symbiotic, magnetic, emotional, amorous, subordinate and superior–that’s just enough to start this conversation. Each and every logo in this trend is challenging you to consider the correlation between a larger and a smaller circle. But that’s as simple as that relationship will ever be phrased. Designers resort to circles not just because they have so many symbolic meanings, which they do, but because they are a terrific conceptual place holder. They are that universal representative that will never make the consumer wince.
Circles just touching may represent a relationship of closer dependence, maybe a symbiotic benefit from their proximity. Quarto, a publishing group, focuses on the Q letterform with the tail of the letter represented by the smaller dot placed tangentially next to the larger circle like there is a magnetic connection that won’t release. Others in this category give the appearance of an orbiting sphere kept in check by the gravity of the dominant partner. Still others are merging or splitting away from the larger component in a cytokinetic action. Pairs of solid circles also populate this trend but that doesn’t seem to alter the symbolism. Surprising is the lack of examples rendered with dimension, but now that genie is out of the bottle, we’ll possibly visit that galaxy next year.
DESIGN AGENCY: PENTAGRAMCLIENT: QUARTO
DESIGN AGENCY: TED KULAKEVICH
DESIGN AGENCY: OLD SHUCK CREATIVE SERVICESCLIENT: SEQUEST
DESIGN AGENCY: AP THE CREATIVECLIENT: KICKS DIGITAL MARKETING
