Equinox
Equinox eBusiness Solutions (1999)
Some loose pencil sketches and a quick reference to an encyclopaedia gave rise to a meaningful use of curves, with an interesting positive-negative interplay of forms.
There were a hell of a lot of swooshy-logos doing the rounds in 1990, and a glance through the appointments section of the paper (before the recession recently hit) evidenced that the plague hadn't abated:
Company name - typed into a graphics programme - Saturn-like swoosh plonked around it. Skewer an orbiting satellite for extra good measure.
This does equally well for tech companies as it does for Dry-Cleaners and skip hirers.
With Equinox logo I first found out exactly what an Equinox was - apart from an impressively scientific sounding word: "Equal Day and Night". When the equator of the Earth and sun are inline. So I sketched a globe - then another overlapping it - and drew a horizontal line through the two. When the one in front was white and the one behind was filled, what do you know? - it looked fortuitously like an E. So in a couple of minutes I had the concept.
The final touch was getting the typography right. I have to tip my hat to my boss who strolled over and suggested "merging a couple of the letters - so they don't just look typed out".That proved to be the most time-consuming element to get working. I also reworked the 'i' to fit the rest of the forms.
Looking at it now, 9 years later my only reservations are the awkwardly oblique form of the strapline, and a feeling that the connecting yellow horizon line between the motif and the type isn't quite as perfect as it might be.
Take out? leave in? Separate?
It's a clean, quirky logo and I still like it.