Trung Phan Profile picture
Oct 10, 2021 21 tweets 8 min read Read on X
OK, this was an interesting rabbit hole: "Famous corporate logo designs with a hidden message"

Here are 12 gems 🧵
1/ In Google's logo, 5 of 6 letters are primary colors. The only outlier is "L", a secondary color (green).

Per the logo's designer:"Instead of having the pattern go in order, we put a secondary color on the L, which brought back the idea that Google doesn't follow the rules."
2/ In the SpaceX logo, the letter "X" matches the trajectory of of the Falcon 9 Rocket.
3/ In the Tostitos logo, the dot on the letter "i" is a bowl of salsa. It is book-ended by 2 people ("t") holding a chip about to smash some food.
4/ The overlapping ovals in the Toyota logo spell out each of the letters in "Toyota" if you look closely.
5/ In the Amazon logo, the yellow arrow links the letters "a" and "z". This signifies that the company sells "everything from A to Z".
6/ Chocolate-maker Toblerone was founded in Bern, Switzerland. The city is known for its bear population, and the animal can be found in the logo's mountain shape.
7/ The green lines in the Cisco logo represent digital signals...but are also in the shape of the Golden Gate bridge (Cisco was founded in SF).
8/ Gillette is obviously known for its razors. To demonstrate sharpness, the tips of the letter "G" and "i" look like they are cut by a blade.
9/ The Berkshire Hathaway logo has NO hidden meaning. It's literally just the words "Berkshire" and "Hathaway"lol
10/ In the Hershey's Kisses logo, the space between the "K" and the "i" looks like ... a Hershey's Kisses.
11/ In the Tesla logo, the "T" logo is a single rotor from an EV motor.
12/ Sony's VAIO logo represents the integration of "analog" and "digital tech". The "VA" is in the shape of an analog wave while the IO refers to digital binary code.
13/ The Beats logo -- a letter "b" on a circle red background -- looks like someone wearing a pair of Beats headphones.
14/ Last (and guessing most people know this): In the FedEx logo, the space between the letters "E" and "x" creates an arrow pointing forward.
15/ If you enjoyed that, I write threads breaking down tech and business 1-2x a week.

Def follow @TrungTPhan to catch them in your feed.

Here's one that might tickle your fancy:
17/ I also discuss interesting topics like this once a week on the Not Investment Advice (NIA) podcast.

(Our logo has no hidden meaning).

Watch/Listen: linktr.ee/notinvestmenta…
18/ Urban legend had it that the collar in the @Wendys logo spelt out "MoM". Wendy's denies it but I choose to believe it a real hidden message.
19/ Here are a few more:
◻️ The "B" in Ray Bans is a pair of sunglasses
◻️ The "B" and "R" in Baskin Robbins make the #31 (as in 31 flavors)
◻️ The yellow circle in "Tour De France" is actually someone riding a bike
◻️ The "U" Unilever logo is made up of products they sell
20/ Re: the Google designer that says “green is a secondary color”.

It is for painting but not for physics and light:

🔗 science.howstuffworks.com/primary-colors…

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More from @TrungTPhan

Feb 4
Norway discovered off-shore oil in 1969. It launched its sovereign wealth fund with $300m in 1996.

It’s since grown 6,000x to $1.8T or $327,000 per Norwegian (5.5m people).

The fund owns 1.5% of all global equities but, most impressively, had a UX designer put a real-time fund value tracker on its website landing page.
Norway’s SWF roughly is 65% equity, 25% bond, 10% real estate/infra (all global).

Unsurprisingly, its largest holding is Apple ($47B, or 1.4% of the entire company).

On a related note, here is my deep dive podcast on Steve Jobs and making of the iPhone: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/caf…
Norway spared no expense on its SWF website. Look at that carousel!
Read 4 tweets
Feb 4
never forget that episode of “Nathan For You” when he launched a fire detector product and tried to avoid import tariffs by turning it into a music device
One company that has been very good at navigating international food tariffs/regulations is Trader Joe’s. Built its dairy and wine businesses by finding workarounds.

I explain in this deep dive podcast on Trader Joe’s business history and strategy: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/caf…
Nathan’s “Blues” Smoke Detector Instrument lololol:

— “concert quality”
— “pre-tuned to F-sharp”
— “9 battery lets you jam for hours” Image
Read 4 tweets
Jan 29
wow, found a rare interview of a DeepSeek co-founder talking about his first AI startup exit a few years ago
Jian Yang is my 2nd fave Asian founder who created a food-related product.

The 1st is David Tran, who built Sriracha (great on hot dogs) into a $1B brand using $20k of gold bars he snuck out of Vietnam in milk cans.

I tell the full story in this podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/caf…
sold for $15m, what’s your excuse anon? Image
Read 4 tweets
Jan 17
Bookmarked a bunch of great David Lynch posts in past 24 hours (RIP to a legend):

1/ Martin Scorsese Tribute Image
Read 23 tweets
Sep 19, 2024
PayPal’s bland logo redesign was inevitable
Image
If you are the person that did the un-aligned letters for the previous eBay logo, please contact the research app team. We are huge fans of how un-aligned the “e” is with the “y”.Bearly.AI
This article offers up reasons for popularity of simple font logos (mostly Sans Serif):

— Easier to standardize ads across mediums
— Improves readability (especially on mobile)
— The “brand” matters more than the logo velvetshark.com/why-do-brands-…
Read 4 tweets
Sep 1, 2024
Berkshire Hathaway board member Chris Davis once asked Charlie Munger why Costco didn’t drop the membership card.

Let anyone shop and raise prices by 2% (still great value), thus making up for lost membership fees (and more).

Munger said the card is important filter:

▫️“Think about who you’re keeping out [with a membership card]. Think about the cohort that won’t give you their license and their ID and get their picture taken.

Or they aren’t organized enough to do it, or they can’t do the math to realize [the value]…that cohort will have a 100% of your shoplifters and a 100% of your thieves. Now, it’ll also have most of your small tickets.

And that cohort relative to the US population will probably be shrinking as a % of GDP relative to the people that can do the math [on Costco’s value].”▫️

I have a membership but have been guffing on the math for a few years tbh. They keep telling me to upgrade from Gold to Business but I’m too lazy (even if the 2-3% Cash Back on Business pays back after a few trips).

This is a long way of saying Costco’s membership price hike effective today — its first in 7 years — is annoying but when I decide to do the math in a few months, it’ll be worth it.

***

Chris Davis’ remarks from this episode of The Knowledge Project: open.spotify.com/episode/6fJYHF…Image
Anyway, here is something I wrote about Costco’s $9B+ clothing business my affinity for Kirkland-branded socks and Puma gym shirts. readtrung.com/p/costcos-9b-c…
Two notes:

▫️Meant “Executive” (not “Business”) membership
▫️Chris Davis was doing a pure thought experiment. Costco membership obvi high margin (on~$5B a year) and accounts for majority of Costco profits. Retail margin is tiny on ~$230B of annual sales (Costco would need like another $150B+ from letting anyone shop to make up membership profits)Image
Image
Read 5 tweets

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