Subliminal Messages in Famous Logos
You’ve seen these famous logos countless times on billboards, passing by on trucks, and at the grocery store, but there is more to them than meets the eye. If you take a closer look, you will find that these recognized logos have hidden images and messages. Check out these inventive designs that cleverly use white space and optical illusions to display subliminal messages.
FedEx
This logo appears to be very simple, but if you look at the white space between the "E" and "x" in “Ex," you'll find it is more complex than you thought. Can you spot the arrow?
Tostitos
These popular party chips are a staple at many backyard BBQs, but chances are, you've never noticed the hidden celebration scene concealed within the letters. The second and third "t’s" are sharing a chip over an "i" that is dotted with a salsa bowl. Yum!
Le Tour de France
Named the world's most famous and prestigious cycling race, bike-lovers and non-cyclists alike are familiar with the event's emblem. However, you might be missing out on the logo's most interesting aspect. After careful examination, you'll notice an image of a person riding a bicycle; the yellow circle is the front wheel and the r is the body.
Amazon.com
Amazon.com has become a go-to source for electronic commerce. Clearly there is an arrow under Amazon, but have you ever thought about its significance? Take a look at where the arrow begins and ends: a and z. This secret message seems to conveys that Amazon offers everything from A to Z!
Hershey's Kisses
The Kisses logo doesn’t have much to it, but if you look at it sideways, you might see a chocolate kiss formed between the K and the I.
Toblerone
There’s a slightly obscured bear within the Matterhorn Mountain if you look closely. That’s because the candy bar hails from Bern, Switzerland, a city supposedly named for a bear.
Big Ten Penn State became the 11th member of this university athletic conference, hence the embedded “11” in this logo. That is, until the University of Nebraska–Lincoln became number 12, ushering in a new logo era.
Northwest Airlines Before merging with Delta, Northwest’s logo was one of the best in the industry. The N and W within the circle are fairly obvious, but did you know the circle also serves as a compass? And guess which direction the arrow in the upper-left-hand corner (or the beginning of the w) is pointing?
Baskin-Robbins
Famous for its thirty-one ice-cream flavors (though the company’s expanded beyond that original number at this point), Baskin-Robbins unveiled this new logo in 2006 to commemorate its sixtieth anniversary.
Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium
The tree stands out almost immediately, but if you give the image more than a cursory glance, the designer’s remarkable use of white space becomes clear. There’s a lot of life in this logo, which makes it perfect for a zoo-aquarium combination.
Goodwill
What looks like half of a happy face is also a bigger version of the G in Goodwill’s name. It gives the logo an entirely different feel when you think about it that way.
Carrefour
The name of this French international retail chain translates to “crossroads,” or “intersection” in English. The two arrows pointing in opposite directions indicate this, but there’s also a big C hidden in the white space.
London Symphony Orchestra
The seemingly simple design is both an acronym for the London Symphony Orchestra and a conductor conducting with a baton in his right hand. Neat, huh?
Milwaukee Brewers
This was the Brewers’ emblem from 1978 until 1993. An art history student designed the baseball glove composed of an m and a b for a 1977 logo contest. Now it’s one of the most famous logos in baseball.
Washington State University
Washington State University’s mascot is a cougar, but putting a picture of an actual cougar in the logo would be so boring. Instead, the cougar is created with creative exaggerations of the letters W, S, and U.
