Perfect logo symmetry for an imperfect logo design?

Perfect symmetry is a great starting point for a logo, it’s pleasing to look at and gives a sense of calm, control and professionalism. In design and architecture it is seen as an absolute essential part of the craft.. but is it always the best end result?

Our eye is fine tuned to symetry, but symetry is tricky, and always has to go hand in hand with density, let’s take this logo for example.

The logo is build from perfectly symetrical blocks, the final shape holds 3 blocks of equal width. But due to certain factors it seems… too heavy in the left side. Due to the spacing between the two blocks in the right side and the two sharp corners on the top left, the left shape has a much higher density and therfor makes the logo unbalanced.

This is where optical adjustment should be considered.

Here we see the logo drawn with perfect symmetry in mind

The left shape looks too heavy and bulky compared to the two shapes on the right.
Even if this logo has “perfect” symetry, due to the gap between the two shapes to the right, the left shape feels too large.

This is where optical adjustments come in to logo design.

Overshooting:
In typography, overshooting is when the letter S reaches above and/or beneath the line of the sentence, this is an optical adjustment that is done because otherwise the S would look to small compared to the other letters. Are famous example of this technique being applied in logo design is Google’s G mark, here the optical adjustment has been applied to the right side of the G, making it an imperfect circular shape.

Overshooting technique is applied to the shapes of the logo

To keep the as much of the symmetry as possible, the logo is both adjusted and moved so the distance of all spacing is still the same and the arch of the corners are not affected.

The result

It is arguably a small and indifferent change, but none the less it is a technique that has been applied in typography for centuries and something that has been used by GOOGLE when they created their famous G mark. It is a technique that is here to stay and an important tool for any designer.