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.
Overlapping logos place one form over another so that both remain visible. Where they cross, something new appears: a third shape, a third colour, or a sense that one form sits in front of the other.
Overlap is one of the simplest ways of creating depth in a flat graphic. Even two plain circles, one partly covering the other, suggest layers and space.
Robert Gale’s 1973 logo for Chelsea Industries, a textile manufacturer, overlaps vertical and horizontal bands so that they read like woven cloth.
Transparency takes this further. When overlapping areas are given their own colour, as if two inks had been printed on top of one another, the forms appear to be made of glass, film or light. In the era of spot-colour printing, overprinting was also an economical way of getting three colours from two inks.
Robert Miles Runyan & Associates’ Los Angeles 1984 logo overlaps three stars, built from horizontal lines, in red, white and blue. The overlap creates the impression of a single star in motion.
For Mexico 68, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez combined the five Olympic rings with the numerals ‘68’. The layering of these circular and semicircular components creates a spatial effect within a self-contained symbol.
Outlines can overlap too. Stefan Śledziński’s 1961 logo for the Polish Centralny Zarząd Spółdzielczości Pracy overlaps two hexagonal outlines, each remaining visible through the other.
Overlap lends itself to ideas of collaboration, combination and diversity: several organisations, services or communities that remain distinct while sharing common ground. The overlapping area itself can carry the meaning, standing for what the parts have in common.
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