Comments on: Clever clever logo logo

Clever clever logo logo

maudlin — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:26:06 -0800

You may have already noticed some of the visual tricks in these logos. Or maybe not. (I never saw the b--- in the T-------- logo before.) Or maybe you just think these are too obvious for words and there are much better examples out there. (via)

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:28:54 -0800

Uh-oh, is it dead already?

By: box

box — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:31:54 -0800

Maybe it's just as well. Once you see the g_____ in the C_____, you can never unsee it.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:33:20 -0800

There's a hidden f_____ r_____ in the MetaFilter logo.

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:33:54 -0800

Part of it has loaded for me. I've seen a couple of these already (Fed Ex and Amazon), but I never noticed the Toblerone logo before. Neat!

By: maudlin

maudlin — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:34:10 -0800

Uh-oh. I think The Atlantic may have already kilt it before we came along. Ah, well.

By: Joe Beese

Joe Beese — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:36:18 -0800

Atoms are mostly empty space too. But maybe you already noticed.

By: FishBike

FishBike — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:39:39 -0800

These are neat, although I wonder how effective they are? The FedEx one in particular had been pointed out to me before as an example of cleverness in a branding effort.

You would say you have seen it thousand times but just to make you notice an arrow formed between the letters “E” and “X” conveying speed, direction and reliability of this amazing courier service.

Good for them, but I never noticed the arrow until someone else pointed it out. And how would I know it stands for all that if somebody didn't explain it? If you have to tell people what your logo conveys, it probably doesn't convey it.

By: DU

DU — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:42:54 -0800

And don't forget the "SEX" in the Ritz crackers.

By: Spatch

Spatch — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:46:13 -0800

That sounds like it'd leave crumbs in uncomfortable places.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:50:42 -0800

FishBike: "If you have to tell people what your logo conveys, it probably doesn't convey it." It's a three-pronged marketing effort. Liminal, subliminal, and superliminal. Hey you! Use FedEx!

By: designbot

designbot — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:54:29 -0800

Yes, I want you all to ask your designers make your logo look more conceptual and clever using the graphic designing tricks. Client to designer: "Hmmm... I like it, but let's make it more conceptual. Add some clever. You know, with the graphic designing tricks." Designer (under breath): "Goddamn you to hell, Charlie B. Johnson."

By: brain_drain

brain_drain — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:58:07 -0800

Obligatory link to famously-discarded logo for Asian Studies department at university in Brazil.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:00:34 -0800

Ooh, the Yoga Australia one was good.

By: bjrn

bjrn — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:00:50 -0800

The Toblerone one was neat, hadn't seen that one before. The rest... mostly meh.

By: you

you — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:04:47 -0800

Whaddayaknow, they've actually started using the new OGC logo.

By: MCMikeNamara

MCMikeNamara — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:08:48 -0800

Even though I've also had the "if you don't notice it before it's pointed out, how beneficial is it?" debate about the FedEx logo, I still love the arrow. Surprised once this page loaded that it didn't have the Baskin Robbins pink 31, which I also didn't notice until it was pointed out to me, which, since I look out my back porch seeing this sign daily made me feel ignorant. But, unlike FedEx, it also led me to show my appreciation for their clever marketing with a purchase, ice cream being more of an impulse buy than overnight shipping.

By: JJ86

JJ86 — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:08:49 -0800

you posted: Whaddayaknow, they've actually started using the new OGC logo. Heh, nudge, nudge.

By: Seamus

Seamus — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:09:22 -0800

How about the Jesus fish in the Jack In the Box logo. It makes it read "Jack in the B'Jesus" which is what you say 30 seconds after you eat their 99 cent taco and 2 seconds before you have a load of unnecessary laundry.

By: slogger

slogger — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:15:27 -0800

The forgot the Milwaukee Brewers logo with the "m" and "b" making up the baseball glove. Much better than the Hartford Whalers, IMHO.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:16:52 -0800

I knew a guy who swore that the Red Dog beer logo had top-down view of Darth Vader going down on a woman 69-style.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:18:22 -0800

oops, Red Dog.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:18:47 -0800

Maybe it was Batman, actually.

By: mazola

mazola — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:19:28 -0800

Montreal Expos (baseball). Much better than the Milwaukee Brewers logo IMHO. Heh.

By: quin

quin — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:29:34 -0800

Dead for me. I'll have to check it later. But has anyone else noticed that the AT&T logo looks like a small moon? What's up with that? And don't forget the "SEX" in the Ritz crackers. Who could forget something like that? I've still got crumbs in places I'd prefer not to admit to publicly.

By: echo target

echo target — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:33:55 -0800

Writing out 'Intricate' as !N3K8 seems pretty stupid, even for an IT consulting company. Are they trying to capture the lucrative 14-year-old h4xx0r market?

By: Who_Am_I

Who_Am_I — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:36:20 -0800

But has anyone else noticed that the AT&T logo looks like a small moon? That's no moon.

By: FishBike

FishBike — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:37:09 -0800

I knew a guy who swore that the Red Dog beer logo had top-down view of Darth Vader going down on a woman 69-style. Well, I'll never look at *that* logo the same way again. But see, between this one and the OGC logo, I think this illustrates a major problem with all this logo cleverness. Once we are accustomed to this search for hidden things in company logos, it's much easier for people to find and point out all kinds of imagery the designer never intended to put there.

By: Sova

Sova — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:41:16 -0800

Hey, the Amazon logo has an arrow from the a to the z, like 'a to z'! I've never noticed that before, I think I'm graphically illiterate.

By: uncleozzy

uncleozzy — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:44:32 -0800

Montreal Expos (baseball) I always used to wonder what the hell an "elb" was. Actually, I still do.

By: the aloha

the aloha — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:49:26 -0800

better than the hartford whalers and not even having to leave the nhl, the minnesota wild logo has an nighttime image within the animal head. others wanted to go to baseball. that is fine, but no one can say for sure which hand the batter on the mlb logo is.

By: Falconetti

Falconetti — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:51:15 -0800

Some of these logos are clever but whoever wrote the copy underneath them is not.

By: fijiwriter

fijiwriter — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:53:23 -0800

I think Metafilter killed sportslogos.net. (Or we should give it a hug along with all of the traffic.)

By: Mach5

Mach5 — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:55:16 -0800

I never noticed the A-to-Z connection on the amazon logo, but I have always noticed that it looks like a dick. And now, so will you!

By: smackfu

smackfu — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:13:34 -0800

Heartbeats just doesn't work for me. When you square off musical notes, they don't read as notes at all.

By: kitchenrat

kitchenrat — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:15:08 -0800

gramatically, a mess.

By: kittyprecious

kittyprecious — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:16:18 -0800

Some of these logos are clever but whoever wrote the copy underneath them is not. I've asked this before--and perhaps not in the best forum--but seriously, the author of that text makes me wonder, is there a dialect of English where the words "alphabet" and "letter" are in any way interchangeable?

By: rifflesby

rifflesby — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:23:08 -0800

I agree with Falconetti. Making the company's initial look in some way representative of their product is a very very standard sort of thing in logo design, and while there's some really nice examples here, there's some rather humdrum ones too, which the commenter is way too excited about. "Simply amazing!!" he/she exclaims, over the revelation that one of them uses a check-mark for a V. Well yeah, it's a nice touch, but in an otherwise uninteresting logo, and I guarantee you the designer padded the hell out of their timesheet on that one.

By: TedW

TedW — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:23:36 -0800

You guys will never guess what I just found in the Hooters logo! I can't believe he didn't include it! And count me in with those scratching their heads over the use of "alphabet" to mean "letter"; my 4 year old daughter does it but I expect her to outgrow it.

By: CCBC

CCBC — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:25:11 -0800

ED has a logo? Bet no one uses that as a tattoo!

By: decagon

decagon — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:30:42 -0800

Or maybe you just think these are too obvious for words and there are much better examples out there. Your post has low self-esteem. :(

By: hal9k

hal9k — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:31:38 -0800

Some of these logos are clever but whoever wrote the copy underneath them is not. Oh, Couintreau! Nothing better have been thought.

By: milkwood

milkwood — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:33:11 -0800

I've always loved the "Sun" logo. So clever to spell "Sun" with "u"

By: not_that_epiphanius

not_that_epiphanius — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:38:17 -0800

Rotate this 90 degrees clockwise - and tell me it's not an Aardvark!

By: graventy

graventy — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:39:32 -0800

Actually, a fair number of these logos are less clever, than attempts at being clever. The Big Ten logo? Boring typeface, with the hidden '11' undercutting the name itself. Eleven schools in a division called the Big Ten is dumb. The heartbeats one is awful; no amount of imagination is going to get me to see actual musical notes there. Inthreecate is a dumb name for a company. Has anyone ever used 3 as 'tree' in leetspeak? Lafayette is kind of cool, but also just looks like sloppy handwriting. Piano Forest is neat.

By: quin

quin — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:51:56 -0800

On closer look, the Fuga one is pretty nifty, but unfortunately, if you aren't looking at the whitespace, and you don't know what word you are supposed to be seeing, the logo as presented looks a bit like "GWAR" Which is probably not what you want in an architectural center. Unless you want your buildings made out of foam and covered in fake blood...

By: inigo2

inigo2 — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:52:44 -0800

Hartford Whalers .

By: resurrexit

resurrexit — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:53:51 -0800

Wow, clever. Some of these logos really blue me away.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:00:00 -0800

I notice all of these whenever I see them, but I've done logo/logotype and corporate ID design and I'm always looking for new bits and pieces for my visual toolkit. This is why graphic designers have shelves full of "idea books" filled with logos and layouts. Truly "new" work is either very difficult or a total accident. There's really only so many clever ways you can legibly combine a pictogram and some text, and cleverness is often a designers worst enemy.

By: kittyprecious

kittyprecious — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:01:29 -0800

no amount of imagination is going to get me to see actual musical notes there. That's because the writer didn't notice that it's actually a pair of bent headphones.

By: ArgentCorvid

ArgentCorvid — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:02:35 -0800

Inthreecate is a dumb name for a company. Has anyone ever used 3 as 'tree' in leetspeak? I think that's supposed to be in-tri-cat(e). But I don't believe that I've ever experienced anyone using 'tri' by itself, l33t or not.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:07:22 -0800

Is Heart Beats even a real thing? Can anyone find the web page?

By: Mr.Encyclopedia

Mr.Encyclopedia — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:09:36 -0800

The South Carolina Federal Credit Union logo clearly depicts the destruction of Alderaan.

By: atbash

atbash — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:11:58 -0800

TedW: You guys will never guess what I just found in the Hooters logo! I can't believe he didn't include it! No kidding! I was stunned to see there was an owl in their logo!

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:19:03 -0800

Re: Hooters. Is it bad of me to have seen the same thing in the body wisdom logo?

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:22:44 -0800

An autistic child pointed out the FedEx arrow to me. I had never seen it before, and now I can't un-see it. I've yet to meet anyone in person that know it's there.

By: Night_owl

Night_owl — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:27:15 -0800

That's because the writer didn't notice that it's actually a pair of bent headphones. "Two musical notes are bent in a way to make a heart and and headphns."

By: toroi

toroi — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:48:58 -0800

New Pepsi Logo

By: maryh

maryh — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:58:17 -0800

My son was obsessed with the Expos logo last year, to the point where we had to buy him a damn hat. Dear AskMetafiler: Why can't I post a link to the Expos logo?

By: specialagentwebb

specialagentwebb — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:02:17 -0800

I continue to be impressed by the logo for the Sony Vaio, and the analog-to-digital imagery.

By: GavinR

GavinR — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:04:11 -0800

I love captain obvious coming to our rescue with such explanations as ZOMG THE TREES ARE PIANO KEYS and THE I IS A ZIPPER!!! Is that site a primer?

By: The Tensor

The Tensor — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:05:51 -0800

In a similar vein, I remember grinning the day I realized the Lufthansa logo contains the eagle from the German coat of arms taking flight.

By: robinhoudt

robinhoudt — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:07:47 -0800

The logo for french high speed rail TGV is either pretty clever design or an ironic coincidence.

By: GavinR

GavinR — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:10:14 -0800

Just looked at this more recent post from that blog and it seems that they are taking images from sites such as Worth1000 and cropping to remove the watermark as noted in the comments. http://penflare.com/2009/01/the-secret-messages-of-logos/ Then I found this: http://penflare.com/2009/01/the-secret-messages-of-logos/ This is a rip off splog.

By: GavinR

GavinR — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:11:52 -0800

Oops, messed that up by hitting early too soon, I was refering to this post were they removed the logos and then this site where they stole some of the logo stuff. No real graphic designer worth a damn would stoop so low.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:13:58 -0800

from link: Marriage Logo What better logo can be used to symbolize a marriage with two mirrored “R” in the middle. No frills, no shadows, still so powerful and meaningful. Especially powerful and meaningful to those like myself who are part of a marriage that does have two mirrored Rs in the middle. We always promised nothing would come between us, but a little r and r never did anybody much harm. And I am glad to see that, after all these years as an incorporated entity, marriage has finally gone and gotten itself a logo. As a shareholder, I would have thought after our IPO a few years ago that there would be an increase in our general professionalism and attention to appearance, but getting a good logo is the first I've seen of it.

By: Acey

Acey — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:26:09 -0800

Designer - Sean Farrell Logo Design: When you take off a piece of the “v” in the word “review” it forms a check mark (for review). Simply amazing!! What

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:26:20 -0800

Also, there's an incredible collection of amazing photoshopped photos on the front page of that Graphic Design Blog right now. I mean, I'm still trying to figure out how they did this one. I can't think of any of the filters that would do this kind of thing, although I guess maybe I'm not the top expert on Photoshop. The only thing I can think is that there must be some kind of trick they pulled with the camera; maybe if they took the camera apart and turned the lens 90° or something.

By: mrnutty

mrnutty — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:32:51 -0800

The only thing I can think is that there must be some kind of trick they pulled with the camera; maybe if they took the camera apart and turned the lens 90° or something. I'm no expert either, but I think it has to do with the chemicals used in the darkroom when developing the picture.

By: milestogo

milestogo — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:33:29 -0800

The logo for french high speed rail TGV is either pretty clever design or an ironic coincidence. what am I missing?

By: spec80

spec80 — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:33:37 -0800

Oh... I thought the Amazon logo was doing an epic fail at a smiley face.

By: theclaw

theclaw — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:38:29 -0800

At first, I thought the hyperbolic language was a bit overblown, i.e.: THIS! THIS IS THE GREATEST! ALL HUMAN ENDEAVOR IS INFERIOR TO USING NUMBERS IN PLACE OF LETTERS THAT SOUND LIKE THEM! TO TASTE THE EFFLUVIUM OF THE MIND THAT CREATED THIS IS TO KNOW THE LEAVINGS OF GODS! But then I realized how much fun that enthusiasm would be in real life, but I hope that they never see a Saul Bass retrospective, because I don't think there are enough adjectives in the thesaurus to adequately describe how blown their mind will be. I do have to say that most of the good logos on that list are pretty famous already. Most of the ones unique to this list were derivative, or not very good.

By: GavinR

GavinR — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:40:07 -0800

Here's some recent desing work by the guy this article was stolen from.

By: quin

quin — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:42:55 -0800

The only thing I can think is that there must be some kind of trick they pulled with the camera; maybe if they took the camera apart and turned the lens 90° or something. Nah, this is an easy but time consuming trick; you find a wall, paint the silhouettes onto it, then you suspend the people with harnesses from the roof to pose in the correct positions, and then you go in and digitally remove the wires later. Rotating the camera lens is clever, but it would change the shape of the pixels too much.

By: cmgonzalez

cmgonzalez — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:04:51 -0800

The Toblerone one was neat. The rest, eh. I also didn't realize the Amazon one wasn't just a smile.

By: mrnutty

mrnutty — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:12:41 -0800

>> The logo for french high speed rail TGV is either pretty clever design or an ironic coincidence. > what am I missing? I stared at that for quite awhile before deciding that, upside-down, the TGV looks like "roi", which is french for "king". Not very obvious. Or, for that matter, ironic; but it's all I could come up with. Can you enlighten us, robinhoudt ?

By: theclaw

theclaw — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:24:20 -0800

quin: On(THIS WAS MADE)ly if you have a camera th(BY THECLAW)at doesn't have over-square pixel((C) 2009)s. 'am4zing1photoshipz' style-b(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)logs are why eve(DON'T STEAL MY SHIT)rything I distribute o(SERIOUSLY)n the inte(NOT COOL)rnet is more waterm(REALLY)ark than conten(YOU ASSHOLES)t.

By: mattoxic

mattoxic — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:43:10 -0800

Someone woke up in a good mood Simply amazing!! C’est magnificique! this amazing courier service so powerful and meaningful yummy!! The designer has amazingly used the negative space Nothing better have been thought. simply brilliant

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:46:13 -0800

maudlin: (I never saw the b--- in the T-------- logo before.) Wait, what? Where's the bitch in the twatwaffle?

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:47:06 -0800

I think the TGV logo upside-down looks like AOL.

By: the aloha

the aloha — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:47:57 -0800

theclaw, i come from the other direction. i only put my crappiest of crap online for free with a creative commons and hope that someone reincorporates it and makes it better while i still get some credit. to that end, i would like to allow anyone the ability to remix this single comment. share it with your loved ones so long as you let them know the aloha wrote it. i can think of no greater gift to give. you are welcome.

By: Happy Dave

Happy Dave — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:52:35 -0800

Unfortunately, someone pointed out to me a year back that the much maligned London 2012 Olympics logo looks like Lisa Simpson going down on a dude. Some things, you can't un-see.

By: inigo2

inigo2 — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:00:57 -0800

i would like to allow anyone the ability to remix this single comment. share it with your loved ones so long as you let them know the aloha wrote it. "i like to share it with your loved ones" -- the aloha

By: wilful

wilful — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:02:11 -0800

A funny thing - an Australian colloquialism is to refer to a woman's pubic hair as a "map of Tasmania" (look at a map to work out why). That Yoga Australia logo, which fails to include Tasmania, would place her map of tassie in about the right spot!

By: the aloha

the aloha — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:10:16 -0800

inigo2, how'd they like it? (trick question! i know they LOVED it and were begging for more.)

By: zhwj

zhwj — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:21:05 -0800

specialagentwebb: I can't believe I never made the A/D connection in the Vaio logo before. Having it leap out at me like that is better than all the other clever clever logos put together.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:25:35 -0800

i would like to allow anyone the ability to remix this single comment. share it with your loved ones so long as you let them know the aloha wrote it. "your loved ones are the crappiest of crap. you are no better." --the aloha

By: jettloe

jettloe — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:28:19 -0800

If ya like logos - I recommend 'Brand New' = great logo-rebrand site.

By: desjardins

desjardins — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:40:19 -0800

I think the reversed TGV logo is supposed to look like a snail (get it, high speed rail... snail...?)

By: mrnutty

mrnutty — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:44:15 -0800

I think the reversed TGV logo is supposed to look like a snail (get it, high speed rail... snail...?) Ah, I see it now!

By: robinhoudt

robinhoudt — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:45:09 -0800

It's a snail! The TGV slogan is "take the time to go faster", so I suppose this isn't a coincidence. Unless I'm the only one seeing a snail there. On preview: Ah, I'm not crazy.

By: argh

argh — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:53:45 -0800

I've always been impressed with A-Style, a brand that I'd never heard of until I saw them advertising at MotoGP races. Who knew an entire business could grow around two circles and a serif A?

By: PercussivePaul

PercussivePaul — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:41:32 -0800

I think Metafilter killed sportslogos.net. (Or we should give it a hug along with all of the traffic.) You've inspired me to send a note to Chris Creamer of Chris Creamer's sportslogos.net, who I went to high school with and who is on my facebook and who I haven't talked to in years. He is a very nice guy by the way. I said hi and asked him if he knows what the 'elb' stands for. Hope he replies...

By: rokusan

rokusan — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:04:25 -0800

Meh, this is newsworthy? Mashing letters together doesn't make things clever. And they're sure not "hidden" messages. Writing out 'Intricate' as !N3K8 seems pretty stupid That's getting my Worst Logo of the Week award for sure. Hilariously bad.

By: rokusan

rokusan — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:04:50 -0800

There's a hidden f_____ r_____ in the MetaFilter logo. I'm the hidden f'r in MetaFilter.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:05:24 -0800

ELB is Expansion League Baseball, which doesn't make any sense, but neither did the 'Spos. I don't think we broke Creamer's site, I think he does not allow deeplinking to his images.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:06:00 -0800

I had no idea that the Expos logo was such an enduring mystery. When I was a kid, I always saw it as a typically ugly 70s style "M". This page features several variations on the same theory: there is no "elb", just an e and a b stuck on top of an M. "1. The answer, as I was repeatedly informed, is that it's not "elb", it's that I'm a blind and/or drunk idiot and it's a stylized "M" with an "e" on the left part and a "b" on the right part. They stand for "Expos de Montréal Baseball" and they're also the initials of the team's original owner, Edgar M. Bronfman." 2. "Edgar was not the team's original owner. It was his brother Charles." 3. "As I mentioned, the description of the M, e, and b comes from the Expos media guide that the team published every year (though it was absent from later editions). Here is the text from the 1990 media guide: 'The Expos logo is composed of three letters, the largest of which is the overall stylized "M" for Montreal. Represented in the lower left of the logo is a lower case "e" for expos and on the right hand side of the logo, in blue, is the letter "b" for baseball.'" 4. [Special double-header theory] "We went to a game up there in August of 2004 against the Astros. Great time in a great city. We were able to walk up and purchase tickets right behind home plate and stayed downtown cheaply (didn't even realize until morning that the Astros were there as well). The hotel had put out a Montreal booklet for sports fans that were staying there. I finally found that dumb thing. It states: "It has been debated what the original Expo emblem signified. The Expos have only ever offered one explination. There are three component that are derived from the French tradition of Blue, Blanc, and Rouge. Those components work together to form a stylized M for Montreal." It then goes on about the team history for a little bit before it reaches 1992 in the team history. There it adds that "many have been able to identify the letter e in red just as they can usually identify a blue letter b. There is great debate as to what the white accomplishes. Some see it with e to form a d while others see it it simply as filler as the whole forms the letter M." This page of Expo information continues on. Near the bottom it concludes that "There may never be a consensus as to the true meaning behind the original logo; but it certainly couldn't have been, as one man suggested while standing on his head in front of the stadium during a personal protest against the team leaving. He contends that he saw the true meaning as people were walking past him with the Expos hats and shirts. The emblem is an inverted representation of the reproduction organs; either internal for the females or external for the males". Wikipedia supports the eMb theory, but not the genitals theory. Pity.

By: desjardins

desjardins — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:31:02 -0800

hm, because I totally saw a dick there.

By: mazola

mazola — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:41:07 -0800

This sort of counts in the reverse: I have never associated the big yellow blob in 'The Bay' logo as being a 'B' even though it is the first letter in 'Bay'. I have no idea what I thought it was.

By: Turtles all the way down

Turtles all the way down — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:40:50 -0800

I thought it was "JB" for "Jouers de baseball". Which I thought in turn was derived from the Habs' "CH" logo, for which I've heard two explanations: (1) Club de Hockey, which I think is the favoured one, and (2) "Canadiens Habitants", from a cherished insult in which the team was compared to a bunch of farmers.

By: Turtles all the way down

Turtles all the way down — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:44:03 -0800

*joueurs*

By: Turtles all the way down

Turtles all the way down — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:49:23 -0800

I have never associated the big yellow blob in 'The Bay' logo as being a 'B' even though it is the first letter in 'Bay'. When I was a kid, before I could read, I saw a lot of train cars with the CN logo on the side and I interpreted it in purely graphic terms--like a bent paper clip lying on its side. I still have trouble seeing at as a combination of two letters. And when my mother looks at the Batman logo all she sees is yellow teeth in a black mouth.

By: hattifattener

hattifattener — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:12:23 -0800

I've also always liked the Sun logo. I used to think the Cisco logo was a clever allusion to the spectrum of a BPSK/Manchester encoded signal, but it turns out it's just the Golden Gate Bridge.

By: spock

spock — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:22:19 -0800

Sometimes the corporation seems to lose the memory of the cleverness of their own logo. International Harvestor's old logo was designed to look like a tractor coming towards you. In updating it they put it on a slant, which kinda misses the point (but sure looks post-modern, eh?)

By: GavinR

GavinR — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:29:43 -0800

Normally, I wouldn't even bother but this got under my skin so I even sent a letter to The Atlantic pointing out that this linked to article is pure plagiarism.

By: GavinR

GavinR — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:34:02 -0800

And, I still can't believe that many people marked this as favorite. The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism The linked to article is pure plagiarism Can I say it enough people? Don't visit that site. This is where he stole the post from Does this look familiar at all? All you had to do was put the captions into Google with quotes to find where they stole the material from.

By: mazola

mazola — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:37:18 -0800

I think there is a hidden message in GavinR's post but I can't quite put my finger on it...

By: GavinR

GavinR — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:39:46 -0800

Well I've tried to point this trash out before but everyone seems to be ignoring it. I can't stand lazy plagiarism such as this. They didn't change the captions they stole...when I was in middle school I had at least enough sense to slightly change the passages I swiped from Encyclopedias so that the wording was somewhat different. This guy isn't even that smart.

By: uncanny hengeman

uncanny hengeman — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:04:58 -0800

adultshop.com is better than the "Forkwire Logo" if you use the same judging criteria. IMHO, of course. I'd like to add that I find both logos a bit "meh." The whole bastardised @ and iPaq iPod iinet thang have been well and truly done to death.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:07:13 -0800

I think there is a hidden message in GavinR's post but I can't quite put my finger on it... The trick is to look in the negative space between the lines.

By: Alnedra

Alnedra — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:09:48 -0800

kittyprecious: is there a dialect of English where the words "alphabet" and "letter" are in any way interchangeable Singaporeans do it all.the.time. It drives me crazy.

By: athenian

athenian — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:10:59 -0800

The trick is to look in the negative space between the lines. fn@rd

By: maudlin

maudlin — Tue, 19 May 2009 02:43:13 -0800

GavinR, thanks for the research. I posted this because I thought there were enough logos with surprises in them to be worth starting a thread over, especially if people found some others as part of the discussion. If this guy has a habit of this bullshit -- deleting Worth1000 logos and not giving them credit? Seriously, guy? -- he deserves a kick in the ass. If enough people flag this post because of the original source's plagiarism, or because the logos are mostly boring, or for whatever reason, then it can get dumped.

By: doobiedoo

doobiedoo — Tue, 19 May 2009 04:08:43 -0800

In updating it they put it on a slant, which kinda misses the point (but sure looks post-modern, eh?) It's still coming towards you, it's just drifting around a corner!

By: TedW

TedW — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:15:31 -0800

Interestingly enough, this is what the producer of the original link had to say in the comments of the second link GavinR posted: You have added theses logos very convinently without giving credit to the link you took it from. My blog shows this post titled as "25 Logos with hidden messages" and I am recieving great response on it. I have compiled all these logos after researching the net well and till some silly peopl like you claimed me for stealing these. I think you are the right person to be blamed. Looking at the dates on the blog entries it seems like the graphicdesignblog guy may have stolen it from the penflare guy, and the sikufital guy then stole it from one of them. Anyway, there are obviously some shenanigans going on here. Glad you pointed it out.

By: Secret Life of Gravy

Secret Life of Gravy — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:31:38 -0800

It wasn't the misuse of "alphabets" for "letters" that took me aback, it was the substitution of "watch" for "look" in the commentary about the Australian yoga logo: if you watch it carefully the body posture is creating the Australia Map. I'm watching! I'm watching! When is it going to move?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:45:24 -0800

[replaced link with one to the original blog]

By: asfuller

asfuller — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:05:58 -0800

Ahhh, the blog format. Which some people think requires that you posted something every single day. Even if you have no original thoughts that day. But you must post! You must! So, quick, go out and steal content from another site.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:10:42 -0800

I blame a purely profit motive. Google ads drive the thieves, along with reddit etc that dump users to a site based solely on a link.

By: PercussivePaul

PercussivePaul — Mon, 25 May 2009 20:02:41 -0800

Chris Creamer (of sportslogos.net) wrote back. Here's what he says about the expos logo: "The Expos logo isn't an elb, as most people think it is. It's actually an eMb, the e in red, the M half white, half blue and the b in blue... it stands for Expos (de) Montréal Baseball." He also mentioned that he's had that site going since about 1995. I sent him a link to the Mefi post from a while back about sportslogos.net and he's eager to read it, he always likes to see what other people are saying about his site.