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Logo designers love hidden symbols. Take Fedex. In 1994, when Lindon Leader—then senior design director at Landor Associates, San Francisco—was developing concepts for the new Federal Express logo, he realized, “If you put a lower-case ‘x’ to the right of a capital ‘E’ (Ex) you can begin to see a hint of an arrow, though it is clumsy and extremely abstract.”
Magazine designers enjoy type tricks, too. In our new June issue, design editor Elaine Bradley found a clever way to arrange the headline for a story about a 9th-century Chinese shipwreck.
When Elaine began drafting the opening spread (above), she came to me befuddled. She knew there was a way to play with the repeating IN in “Made IN ChINa” but couldn’t quite see it yet. I was happy to help. Like partners at a design firm, we often bounce ideas off each other. “Sometimes we get stuck,” says Elaine. “We need someone else to unlock us.” So with Sharpie in hand, we sketched some rebus-like options (below).
Our first few scrawls were cryptic, but they triggered a new idea: “What if we put MADE directly over the IN?”
Three words from two. It’s not magic. It’s collaboration.
—Oliver Uberti
To see 25 great logo illusions, check out this cool post.
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