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15 Logos With Hidden MessagesPosted by thardy on Aug 24, 2010 | 56 Comments

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Designing logos can be very difficult. When designing a logo you want it to stand out from the crowd yet still be really simple. Sometimes the designer is reallyclever and makes the logo very simple yet includes a hidden message within the logo that has deeper meaning. In this article we have 15 logos with hiddenmessages, some of which you will have heard of before and some maybe new to you but hopefully you will enjoy them all.

Amazon

The Amazon logo is an extremely simple logo and while the arrow may just look like a smile it actually points from a to z. This represents that Amazon sell everything froma to z and the smile on the customers face when they bought a product.

Baskin Robbins

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The Baskin Robbins logo may look like it includes a simple BR above the name but if you take another look you will that it includes a pink number 31. This is a reference tothe original 31 flavors.

Chick-fil-a

The Chick-fil-a logo incorporates a chicken into the C. Although this isn’t very hidden, it is still very clever.

Eighty20

The eighty20 logo is a bit of a geeky one to figure out, the two lines of squares represent a binary sequence with the blue squares being 1’s and the grey squares being 0’s.Which makes 1010000 which represents eighty and 0010100 which represents 20.

F1

The F1 logo is a fairly simple one to figure out. The negative space in the middle creates the 1.

Facebook Places

If you didn’t already know Facebook Places, is Facebooks new geolocational product. Which is in direct competition with the current leader in that area Foursquare. Now ifyou take another look at Facebook Places logo you will notice it is a 4 in a square now is this a coincidence or a dig at Foursquare?

Fedex

The FedEx logo look like a plain text based logo but if you take a second look between the E and the x you will see an arrows which represents the speed and accuracy ofthe companies deliveries.

Milwaukee Brewers

The old Milwaukee Brewers logo may look like a simple catchers mitt holding a ball, but if you take a second you will see the team’s initials M and B.

Museum of London

The Museum of London logo may look like a modern logo design but it actually represents the geographic area of london as it as grew over time.

NBC

The NBC logo has a hidden peacock above the above text which is looking to the right, this represents the companies motto to look forward and not back, and also that theyare proud of the programs they broadcast.

Northwest Airlines

The old Northwest Airlines logo may look like a simple logo but if you take a closer look the symbol on the left actually represent both N and W and because it is enclosedwithin the circle it also represents a compass pointing northwest.

Piano Forest

The Piano Forest logo may look like a simple text logo with trees above it, but if you take another look you will see that the trees actually represent keys on a piano.

Toblerone

The Toblerone logo contains the image of a bear hidden in the Matterhorn mountain, which is where Toblerone originally came from.

Tostitos

The Tostitos logo includes two people sharing a chip and a bowl of salsa, this conveys an idea of people connecting with each other over a bowl of chips.

Treacy Shoes

The Treacy Shoes logo is very cute logo with a shoe hidden between the t and s.

About the Author

Thomas Hardy is a freelance web designer from Newcastle upon Tyne (UK), here is his portfolio. He founded Design-Heaven and Work-Killer, where he regularly blogs.You will also find him on Twitter and Facebook.

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56 comments

1.

Yorrany Braga

August 24, 2010

Genial, great insight.Thanks for sharing.

Reply

2.

Matthew

August 24, 2010

Thanks for sharing mate, this was such an interesting read.

Thouroughly enjoyed this article. Cheers!

Reply

3.

Rozi

August 24, 2010

What could I say? Creative! This is how logo should be. Simple, beatiful and meaningful.

Reply

4.

Lovely

August 24, 2010

Superb, aside from the obvious “popular topic” shoehorning in of the Facebook Places logo. If that’s how you draw the number 4, you need to go back to school. Itjust isn’t there.

Reply

Bret Juliano

August 24, 2010

There’s a rough version without the map indicator on it (Some colors have been changed for visibility)http://tinypic.com/r/16kyk44/4

Reply

5.

Jakob Birgersson

August 24, 2010

Designers with brains. I like that!

Reply

2experts

August 25, 2010

me too

Reply

6.

Erjon Mehmeti

August 24, 2010

These guys should go bowling with Leonardo Da Vinci ))

Thanks for the article, I will never view the logos the same anymore.

Reply

7.

Warren Jerzyszek

August 24, 2010

Great list… I have to be totally honest and say that I never noticed the connections and hidden meanings behind the logo designs you’ve shared with us. I really enjoylogo design and also try to include little secrets here and there but like you mentioned the simpler the logo gets the harder it is to incorporate hidden meanings. This wasa really good read. Thanks for sharing.

Reply

8.

Simon Willans

August 24, 2010

Doesn’t the eighty20 one only work backwards.- It should be 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, not the other way around?

Reply

Brian Altenhofel

August 24, 2010

The eighty20 logo is correct. Binary is written with the lowest number to the right, just like hexadecimal and decimal notation.

Reply

9.

Webrunner

August 24, 2010

I don’t think Facebook places logo is related to 4square, it’s only Facebook’s F rotated 90°CCW…

Reply

Ben

August 24, 2010

Whether or not the 4 / square was intentional is debatable, but I bet whoever designed it, even if they meant for it to appear like the facebook lowercase “f”, musthave realized it at some point, smirked, and left it like that on purpose.

Reply

10.

kropped

August 24, 2010

Cool collection

Reply

11.

Nico Kunz

August 24, 2010

To be honest, your post is just a rehash of about a million other blog posts out there that showcase hidden messages in logos. If you had found a new one then thatwould have been cool.

Reply

Moz

August 24, 2010

I agree – disappointing collection, and rather limited observations too, compared with what’s gone before.

Reply

12.

Thomas Røst Stenerud

August 24, 2010

Brilliant post, indeed. Wasn’t a part of the idea behind the NBC Peacock to highlight the vibrant colours of the colour TV set? Can’t remember where I picked that up,though. Nevertheless; thanks for sharing!

Reply

13.

web designer leicester

August 24, 2010

Nice post, i never noticed the amazon logo points from A-Z before…

Reply

14.

Brian Altenhofel

August 24, 2010

The Big Ten Conference logo (American college football) also has a good one. A few years back, they expanded to 11 teams, but Big Eleven doesn’t have the samering to it. So, they put some 1’s on either side of the T in negative space.

Reply

15.

Rob Dyson

August 24, 2010

Bar the Eighty 20 logo, I don’t think any of these were particularly designed to be ‘hidden’- rather they all represent the ingenuity of good designers (I would have saidthey were all quite overt). But seeing them altogether is a great celebration of what makes a memorable brand design, so thanks for sharing

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16.

Lara

August 24, 2010

I never noticed the arrow in FEDEX! I feel so ashamed.

Reply

17.

Ivan Tsankov

August 24, 2010

Simply brilliant!What could I say?

The NortWest Airlines,Fedex and Amazon logo arecreated by real,creative designers!This is how it should be done!

Reply

18.

Brad Morse

August 24, 2010

Another one I’ve always liked is the Safe Auto logo. There is a rear view mirror in between the “S” and “A” in the logo.http://www.safeauto.com/

Reply

19.

Austin Pickett

August 24, 2010

Now I want a toblerone…!

Reply

Scott

September 5, 2010

I know it’s an old joke, but it’s near impossible to eat a Toblerone without hurting yourself.

Reply

20.

Online Printing Services

August 24, 2010

Didn’t know that the bear was in the Toblerone logo.

Reply

21.

Johnny Deeze

August 24, 2010

Abuse of the word “hidden”.

Reply

22.

Eko

August 25, 2010

Amazing, very creative logo design…Thanks…

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23.

Dave

August 25, 2010

Check out the Big Ten Conference logo.The task was to create a logo for a conference that actually has eleven teams. Great.

Reply

24.

Grzegorz

August 25, 2010

Great article. That’s amazing pice of art!

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25.

Craig

August 25, 2010

Creative and well thought out Logos, Thanks for the share.

Reply

26.

Dawid Deja

August 25, 2010

Lots of interesting stuff.This was the first time I was looking at most of this logos differently.

Cheers for this article.

Reply

27.

Jeff

August 25, 2010

Creative, yes. Hidden, no.

Reply

28.

Arslan

August 25, 2010

Nice Collection

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29.

Kartlos Tchavelachvili

August 25, 2010

…very interesting stories behind those logo designs, especially Amazon & NBC.

TH4NK5 : )

Reply

30.

Mauricio González

August 25, 2010

“The xx logo may look like a simple logo but if you take a closer look …”

Reply

31.

mimwow

August 26, 2010

good article, thank u.

guys who made those logos are pure genies.

Reply

32.

Hey

August 29, 2010

Most of these are pretty obvious. Come on- Baskin Robbins? The “hidden” element is highlighted in pink.

I feel like the only one that will always truly shine is the FedEx one. That is because it works and reads exactly the same weather you see the negative space or not.

Reply

33.

Hey

August 29, 2010

whether*

Reply

34.

thesebb

August 29, 2010

Very interesting article! I really like Amazon and Fedex. All of them are very good though.

Reply

35.

Lisa Thomason

August 31, 2010

Amazing, very original logo designs. LT

Reply

36.

Amanda Smit

September 1, 2010

Brilliant, and loved the explanations too!

Reply

37.

rickwebz

September 1, 2010

Not sure if I should be amazed or feel shameful. Most of those logos have been in front of me for years and I never saw the hidden elements in them.

Reply

38.

inspirationfeed

September 1, 2010

Fedex logo is classic!

Reply

39.

Azim Khatri

September 3, 2010

Brillian job…quite interesting

Reply

40.

Jeff

September 3, 2010

Interesting information on how some of these logo designs came about, Cheers

Reply

41.

blogwebdesigner

September 12, 2010

Very interesting article! I really like Fedex.

Reply

42.

Fabian Lujan

September 14, 2010

Carrefour logo?There’s a “C” in the white neutral space.

Reply

43.

skaizun

September 14, 2010

What might be a coincidence, the blue area of the letter ‘m’ in the baseball Milwaukee Brewers logo appear to be three mugs of beer, and the yellow part could be thefoam! Brewers and Beer!

Reply

44.

Rett

October 1, 2010

Nice job choosing the most obvious hidden messages. And I think your the 1000th designer to write about the fed ex arrow.

Reply

45.

Simon Hall

October 8, 2010

Never noticed the bear in the Toblerone logo before. I’ll sleep better for that.

Reply

46.

Jason Bones

November 7, 2010

This Facebook Groups thing…turned sideways represents an f.

Reply

47.

Felipe Spina

November 16, 2010

Maybe you could see the Carrefour supermarket logo, it’s a good example as well

Reply

48.

Miguel

November 16, 2010

Fantastic article.

Thanks

Reply

49.

Achim

November 21, 2010

Wow, that Fedex and Toblerone thing really got me – seeing it for years but never REALLY seeing it. Thanks for sharing and opening eyes.

Reply

50.

web design hull

December 7, 2010

Nice collection, there were plenty of hidden elements that I’ve never noticed… I can’t believe I’ve missed the fedex arrow.

Reply

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