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29 People Who Realized Famous Logos Are Not What They Always Thought They Were
Logos—they’re the concentrated sweat and tears of brilliant artists crafting away to create the ‘perfect’ image representing their client’s brand. After hours and days of toil, deleted drafts, and angry coffee breaks, the final version’s ready. It’s being rolled out worldwide… and that’s when thousands of people report seeing a completely different image than they intended.
When Headspace content director Freddie Campion shared how his wife had thought that Colonel Sanders had a stick body instead of a bowtie in the KFC logo, other Twitter users pitched in with their own hilarious misinterpretations of well-known logos. Check ‘em out below and upvote your fave tweets, dear Pandas. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you—you’ll have a hard time unseeing these! Be sure to share your own misunderstood logo moments in the comments.
This isn’t the first time that Bored Panda has written about people misinterpreting the KFC logo and the stick body now being seared into our minds for a long, long time. I’d forgotten all about it a few months after learning the truth, but Freddie brought everything back. And I knew just who to talk to about all of this. Curious? Read on!
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I never noticed it until I watched a video on hidden things in logos.
Bored Panda spoke about Freddie’s thread with comedy writer, author, and musical comedian Ariane Sherine, who had previously gone viral for her tweet about her friend misinterpreting the KFC logo as well. Twitter users brought Freddie’s thread to her attention as well.
I was incredibly curious to find out whether Freddie’s wife was Ariane’s friend. It sounded like too much of a coincidence. Maybe this was a sign from the Universe? Alas! Ariane confirmed to Bored Panda that there’s no connection between her friend and Freddie.
“They’re clearly kindred spirits though! I should hook them up (though Freddie’s wife might not like that much!),” Ariane joked.
I wanted to find out the best way to make myself forget that Colonel Sanders looks like he has a stick body and Ariane made my day with her quips. “Why try to unsee the stick body? Just accept it. Colonel Sanders is like a stick because he doesn’t eat his own products! That is not the body of a man who has eaten much fried chicken,” she shared.
Unfortunately, acceptance seems like the only path forward, dear Readers. Hopefully, we’ll forget all about stick-Sanders over the next few months… until someone else makes a viral thread about the logo. With Freddie’s thread having gotten over 425k likes, KFC couldn’t ask for better exposure.
According to Comedian Ariane, logo designers can try and minimize the chances of their illustrations being misinterpreted by running them past as many people as possible. The bigger the pool, the bigger the chance of spotting that something’s off. However, Ariane hopes they don’t do that because then there’d be no hilarious misunderstandings.
Just in case anyone is curious, the Chinese symbols for New York are 纽约
It's a Siren, actually. Going off the nautical theme of Captain Starbuck
Load More Replies...In the hidden stuff in logo's video it said that it stands for the fact that she is infact a mermaid or a siren, im shocked too
She is Melusine, the alchemical siren and twin tailed mermaid. I would like to believe the connection is more than just face value.
If those are legs then she is wearing wicked witch stockings!
The double tailed siren is a medieval symbol used in boats the founders saw in a book about maritime legends, they decided to use it because Seattle is a port city and coffee is normally exported by boat
Pretty loose connection to the quality of the coffee. Just my opinion.
Load More Replies...The logo used to show her full tail with a sort of butt shape at the bottom as each side went up, but they changed it because some group of people somewhere thought it was dirty.
Bc they drew her with breast and her nipples were showing.
Load More Replies...Interesting! https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronaldholden/2017/03/04/mermaid-siren-princess-how-the-starbucks-logo-evolved/
The original logos showed more of her tail so it made more sense. I actually prefer those ones to the minimalist one.
It after a famous piece of art .. the image was cropped from the original version because people thought it was too vulgar .
elfin tuzdayschild here you go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melusine
I live near Seattle and originally the image was a wider view, basically showing a 2 tailed mermaid with legs spread
I saw the mask face immediately. It took me longer to see the, um, other thing.
Wow, that's such a great design! I saw both the letters & the picture straight away. It's simple & to the point but unique enough to be memorable. Sorry, as someone with a graphic design passion I'm geeking out over this! It's genius!
Yes, because it's healthy to drink water after a good game of soccer.
Until Thanksgiving this year, I thought the NBC logo was a sunrise, but no! It's a peacock, to represent when they brought in colored television. That's why a little triangle (that I swear was NEVER there before) is out of the side of the purple thing. Needless to say, I was in shock for the rest of the week.
I laughed so hard when one idiot complained that NBC had changed its logo to have a rainbow in it in honour of gay pride and why couldn't they just shut up about politics, etc etc. Some people really aren't good at paying attention...
Load More Replies...The Canterbury clothing company logo is weird. I always saw the three 'c's, my friend always saw the three kiwis (then we realised it's both!)
Until Thanksgiving this year, I thought the NBC logo was a sunrise, but no! It's a peacock, to represent when they brought in colored television. That's why a little triangle (that I swear was NEVER there before) is out of the side of the purple thing. Needless to say, I was in shock for the rest of the week.
I laughed so hard when one idiot complained that NBC had changed its logo to have a rainbow in it in honour of gay pride and why couldn't they just shut up about politics, etc etc. Some people really aren't good at paying attention...
Load More Replies...The Canterbury clothing company logo is weird. I always saw the three 'c's, my friend always saw the three kiwis (then we realised it's both!)