The "Double-O" Ligature

December 31, 200817 yr

Thanks for sharing the Olympic logo and Audi :) Gave me a good laugh.

January 1, 200917 yr

Re Dan – here’s one from my Flickr stream: CO, OO, LI & Co

January 1, 200917 yr

Great! Thanks.

January 2, 200917 yr

And here’s a beautiful finding from Caren Litherland.

January 2, 200917 yr

Moo. A moo ligature?

January 2, 200917 yr

@Frode: I think those look more like c+o, James.

To ensure that somebody would say that, I left them out of context. In context they function as OO units.

@Altaira: As per the “non-true ligature” attached to the first post, James, I don’t think it is so much about the unusual placement of the second “O” than because it is quite visible that the second O was scaled down in size.

Scaling down the second O in size is the best thing about it and to my way of designing using ratios and sizing for repeating letters is essential. It makes loads of sense to me, and so on, and such-like etcetera. I put lots of ratio and sized bowl elements into Pyke's Peak and have continued the theme and technique in Jabberwub.

Florian that's a great example of Caren's!

Great thread!

j a m e s

January 2, 200917 yr

Here's a whole identity scheme we designed a few years ago based around the rather tasty OO-Ligature in *gasp* Optima Nova:

http://cocoons.funkbuero.de/

http://funkbuero.de/projekte/casestudies/cocoons/ (German text)

The company is sadly defunct now, though I tend to think the ligature wasn't to blame.

January 2, 200917 yr

Author

Thank you to everyone who posted a response to my question! I really appreciate all the great examples that you've found.

When I mentioned in my original posting that I didn't think St. Mary's used a true double-o ligature, I'm talking about an actual ligature; i.e, one single character, or glyph in the typeface. I think St. Mary's logotype was created by using two distinct letter o's.

The Audi and Olympic symbols are excellent examples of O's that intersect, but these are not true ligatures either. They are wonderful examples of how circles were used to form a distinct logo.

I love all the examples. Thank you again for all the logos you've found, including the font families that were mentioned.

Glenn

January 4, 200917 yr

Chiming in a bit late here, but since you mentioned Bloomingdale's, Glenn, I thought I would also mention its younger neighbor: Bergdorf Goodman.

January 5, 200917 yr

∞ps!

January 5, 200917 yr

Not double o ad infinitum!

ChrisL

January 15, 200917 yr

Hello,
Sorry about the shameless self promotion, but here a couple of double o's

January 15, 200917 yr

That is sweet as a nut.

Tim

January 16, 200917 yr

Author

Hi Mark,

I love your Mark Books stamp, with the double-o ligature. I noticed the MB ligature in your avatar, too.... nice work!

January 18, 200917 yr

Thanks Glenn (and Tim)
A few other bits and bobs on
http://flickr.com/photos/m-brooks
I love this forum - I'll get stuck in where I can. Glad there are some other weirdoes out there who worry about ligatures, spacing, and other such things. I'm not alone.

January 21, 200917 yr

Some of the Peugeot range have a weird double-0 (not O) in their name (e.g. Peugeot 4007) but some versions (on the Peugeot website) don't seem to have this nuance.

January 21, 200917 yr

Doubletree. The official lesbotel. Kidding. Sadly.

hhp

January 25, 200917 yr

i designed a logo for a magazine called MOOI (which means beatifull in Dutch) for which i designed a double O ligature. The magazine was suppose to be about fashion, glas an ceremics and juwelry and would come out once a year all long side an Artmagazine, But it never made it
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/joostmarcellis/Mooi.jpg