- [Narrator] I was always taught
that the quickest way from point A
to point B is a straight line.
So it pretty much stands that the serpentine line
is for someone with either too much time on their hands,
or it's more about the aesthetics
of the journey than the destination.
I'm good with that.
These thoughts come to mind because this set of marks
all use a composition of half circles, alternately flipped,
and gathered together in a chain like fashion
and connected at their tips.
In our grand symbolic vernacular,
when we throw up a vertical wavy line,
you can bet it usually represents steam or smoke,
but flip the same horizontal,
and it quickly turns to water or maybe some rolling hills.
The challenge is weight, to convey this essence with a line
means beefing up the weight substantially to keep it legible
when scaling down or creating a wavy edge
to a solid field, both acceptable solutions,
but maybe lacking that certain finesse.
Candidates for this technique
that has seen it rise in logo design
have been using this mashup by driving a straight line
right through the heart of the serpentine.
The enclosed segments filled in that variegating weight
gives an airy rhythm to the mark.
Repeat that process,
and it becomes a pretty engaging texture.
Look at how the fire and smoke in this mark
have expanded the thinking to include arcs
and half circles in a chain or how beautifully this logo
for Setma builds a seaside landscape
by letting the horizontal define the shoreline,
the interplay of color and transparencies
really sell this mark.
Used in a supporting role like the steam
rising from the bull,
or to create a simple, geometric pattern,
this technique adds a rhythmic field
to a mark using minimal visual exertion.
The method can become cumbersome when the chain
has too many links, either vertically or horizontally,
as it really limits scalability.
Moderation works to your advantage here.
And by the way, if you're knocking out a letter S
with this technique, you're completely golden.