Hidden designs in famous logos - FedEx

There is an arrow hidden in the FedEx logo. (If you've never noticed, go take a look, and prepare to be blown away.)

The clever use of the negative space between the last two letters has won the logo several awards and makes it one of the most effective ever created. Design guru Stephen Bayley included it in his list of the 20 designs that defined the modern world, calling it "one of the happiest accidents in the history of graphic design."

It was, in fact, an accident. "Farthest from our minds was the idea of an arrow," Lindon Leader, who designed the logo in 1994, said in an email interview. "But in an internal critique midway in the logo exploration, I was intrigued by a design that had very tightly spaced letters."

Leader and his team at Landor Associates, the consulting firm that was tasked with reinventing FedEx's brand identity, developed over 400 versions of the logo, before noticing that putting a capital "E" and a lowercase "X" together created the suggestion of an arrow.
"After a few days, it dawned on me that if a genuine arrow could be introduced into the letterforms, it could subtly suggest getting from point A to point B reliably, with speed and precision," said Leader.

The power of the arrow, Leader thinks, is simply that it is a hidden bonus, and not seeing doesn't reduce the impact of the logo itself. But how many people actually see it without being told where it is?

"The prevailing notion is -- I've heard -- that perhaps less than one in five people find the hidden arrow unaided. But I can't tell you how many people have told me how much fun they have asking others if they can spot something in the logo," Leader said.

Follow the arrow: Hidden designs in famous logos - Written by Jacopo Prisco, CNN