Written by Richard Baird, founder of LogoArchive, the world’s largest historical logo book with over 5,500 curated logos, and of LogoHistories, home to 200+ in-depth logo histories.
Symmetry offers calm, balance and a sense of completeness, as explored in reflection logos. Asymmetry does the opposite. By shifting weight to one side, tilting a form or breaking a regular rhythm, a designer introduces tension, and with it a sense of movement and energy.
That tension has to be controlled. An asymmetrical logo still needs to feel resolved, as though every element is exactly where it should be, even if the two halves do not mirror one another. The skill lies in balancing unequal parts so the mark feels deliberate rather than accidental.
Asymmetry often comes from combining unequal parts. Philip Seefeld’s 1968 logo for Pittsburgh Wholesale Distributors, designed at Unimark International, stacks a square, a triangle and a circle off-centre, a playful arrangement for a distributor of toys.
The most common device is the diagonal. Set against the horizontals and verticals of a page, sign or building, a diagonal immediately reads as active, suggesting growth, ascent or forward motion.
Anton Stankowski’s 1974 logo for Deutsche Bank places an oblique beam, slanted at 53 degrees, inside a square drawn with a bold line. The frame is stable; the beam is not. Stankowski described the result as dynamic, ascending and secure.
Pentagram’s 1975 logo for Lucas Industries is built around the ‘Lucas diagonal’, a band of twenty equal squares set at 45 degrees, giving an engineering company a sense of forward momentum.
Asymmetry can also suggest speed. Robert Miles Runyan & Associates’ ‘stars in motion’ for the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics stacks three overlapping stars built from horizontal lines that increase in thickness, so the mark appears to move across the page.
Armando Milani’s 1975 logo for Pavites Carpets pairs a half sunburst with a block of horizontal stripes, two very different forms held in balance.
Asymmetry suits companies that want to appear progressive, energetic or forward-looking, such as banks signalling growth, manufacturers signalling progress and events celebrating speed and sport.
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