- [Instructor] In the Logo Shape Hall of Fame,
inductee number one is the circle.
And I mean, with unfaltering, uncontested,
unanimous agreement and for good reason.
Much of logo design is about building clarity of message,
pulling disparate ideas together into a single essence
and neatly packaging it for visual consumption.
Hard to tie a neater bow around something than a circle.
And when delivering context
that disc is rife with symbolism
highly useful in logo design.
Since the dawn of civilization,
we've emulated the shape of the sun and the moon
or rings in the water or the pupil of our eye.
Nature delivers orbs to us in abundance.
And that defining ring has come to symbolize
life and time, eternity and completion,
unity and singularity, perfection and emptiness
and nearly every contradictory concept you can fathom.
The circle can be that universal tool in our kit of parts.
But when you steal the concentric center from a disc,
in geometric terms, we've just created an annulus.
What might be referred to commonly as a donut, a loop,
a hoop, a halo, or even in avant-garde letter O.
And it's not that we're talking about a new discovery here
since the Obama logo also launched a rash of these.
It's the use of gradients or a halftone effect
that's really caused this shape to leap to the top
of the popularity heap.
Yup, a ring still conveys all those connotations
we've mentioned and more,
but with the treatment of the surface to a wash of tone,
a new world of symbolism is exposed.
It's not just a cycle, but one from cool to hot
or night to day or properly shaded,
the ring takes on dimension.
Gradients can wander the rings perimeter
or spread across the face,
or even diminish into an inner abyss.
And though it's swell if your name starts with an O,
the imbued power of this shape far exceeds
mere association as a monogram,
but surface treatment hasn't been relegated
to gradient only status.
Look at how the ring has taken on additional context
with texture, line and pattern.
Royal Astronomy still presents us with an apparent ring,
but note the unique line weights
give the mark an additional depth of dimensionality
even without tone.
But for all of the tonal play
and the surface treatment of the annulus,
I think the real power of this set
is exactly what you don't see,
that yawning vacant core
that gives the ring its true context and mystery.
Does this represent a protected dimension,
an obstacle circumvented, a portal or right of passage,
or is it the gravitational center obscured
by an entity too bright to observe?
Or is your client's logo merely a frame
designed to reflect a purity and perfection
that gravitationally allows the ring to orbit?
All of which are pretty heady brand stories
for a shape around which our civilization was born.