Logo Hidden Secrets

Logos are everywhere. You see them all the time, so much in fact, you’re probably missing some of their hidden secrets. I love a good Easter egg. Whether it be in a video game, an app or a well designed logo. I’ve tracked down a few of my favorite logo hidden secrets so I can reveal the Easter eggs to you.

FedEx Logo

The first one I always think of is FedEx. The logotype is so clean and simple you might not immediately recognize the arrow that gets created in the negative space between the “E” and “x.” It works very well for conveying the “moving forward” attitude of a shipping company.

Amazon Logo

Amazon has a very recognizable logo, and many people would probably tell you they see a smile. They wouldn’t be entirely wrong, as the orange arrow does convey smiling but it also shows “A to Z.” It’s said Amazon wanted to be the online shop for everything from A to Z. They have pretty much achieved that goal and so has their logo, making it that much cooler now.

The Big Ten college football conference has not one, but two logos with hidden goodies. The previous logo had a hidden 11 in the negative space. At the time the conference had 11 teams but didn’t want to lose the equity of their name (plus, Big Eleven doesn’t have the same ring to it). The most recent logo came out after another team was added (making 12 teams, and the Big Twelve name is already taken) so they dropped the hidden 11 and made the word Big also show a hidden ten. It allows it to stand alone without adding a second word or numbers. Pretty slick, especially for the often over-designed world of sports.

Toblerone logo

Toblerone is a chocolate maker based in Bern, Switzerland. Bern is often called the “city of bears.” Upon close inspection of the mountain, you’ll notice a bear outline. That’s nice little design detail and tribute to their hometown.

Northwest Airlines logoNorthwest Airlines may now be part of Delta, but their old logo had a couple hidden gems. There’s an “N” as well as an implied “W” in the icon. It gets better; the little arrow actually points in the direction of northwest. Those are pretty clever details.

There are many more logos with little secrets, but the above are just a few of my favorites. Maybe I’ll do another one of these posts in the future. Did I miss your favorite? Tell me about it in the comments.

CityMaps Shows You What’s Nearby with Logos

A while ago About Foursquare reported on a really cool new map service called CityMaps. They’re billing it as “the social map” because it’s connected to a number of social media services like Twitter and foursquare. What I find most interesting was the inclusion of logos on the maps instead of just names. As a designer I’ve got a soft spot for logos so an entire map full of them makes me smile. I think it’s a really unique way to convey the information. In a lot of ways, it’s a lot more useful too. If I’m looking for the nearest Starbucks or McDonald’s, their logos are going to pop out at me much quicker than just their names. In this day and age logos are so recognizable that this approach seems to make perfect sense. I’m actually a little surprised this hasn’t happened sooner.

an example CityMap of San Francisco

Beyond just the unique logo integration, they pull in foursquare tips and recent tweets. It’s a really great mashup of social information on top of a nice looking map. Right now they just have maps for New York, San Francisco and Austin but there are more on the way. There is even an iPhone app so you can enjoy CityMaps on the go. With all of that info combined together it really shows just how powerful APIs can be. I think they’re trying to make it a useful “explore your city” services but so far I don’t think it has much on foursquare. I’ll be keeping an eye on CityMaps because it’s already cool and has so much potential to become even better.