7 ms·

Our Logo Looks Like Underpants: A Case Study in Internationalization (2013)

157 points by fludlight 8y ago

dang 8y ago
Discussed in 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10499578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10499578 And in 2013: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6521138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6521138
- mintplant 8y ago
  From their website, looks like they eventually went back to something close to the original design (and which, really, looks even more like underpants now): https://rjmetrics.com/ https://rjmetrics.com/
  - croisillon 8y ago
    they should run a survey in france and be surprised how respondents answer "slip kangourou"
    - mirimir 8y ago
      That's pretty close to a codpiece ;)
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Indeed it does. OK, so I can't help myself. Experts Exchange went from expertsexchange.com to experts-exchange.com, and the old hostname used to redirect. But now expertsexchange.com is for sale ;)
  - msiggy 8y ago
    And if you scroll down you will see that one of their customers is Me Undies :)
bitwize 8y ago
I have three letters for you if you think this can't happen within your own borders: OGC
- asteli 8y ago
  Link for reference: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-logo-to-red-faces.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-log... Including this gem: >A spokesman for OGC said: “It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC - and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.”
  - Sharlin 8y ago
    Can't beat British humor.
- athenot 8y ago
  Same with TGV in France. The high-speed train logo, when rotated upside-down turned out to be… a snail. https://yannigroth.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/logo-tgv-escargot.jpg?w=600 https://yannigroth.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/logo-tgv-esca...
  - yiyus 8y ago
    So the TGV is the inverse of a snail. That sends the right message, IMO.
    - icc97 8y ago
      Well, a snail on its back, even slower than a snail.
      - sjwright 8y ago
        If you want to laugh at French public transport, the correct unfair stereotype is worker strikes, not slow speeds. Speaking as an occasional tourist, French intercity trains are pretty damn great. Most have top speeds of 300 km/h (190 mph) or higher and achieve these speeds in normal service. Compared to anything you'll find in US or UK, it's incredible. Being able to travel between major cities by high speed train makes short journey air travel outdated. Paris to Marseille is 775 km (481 mi) which takes 7.5h to drive on fast motorways, 3–3.5h by high speed train, and just 1.5h to fly... but then add on ~1h of travel to and from airports and ~1h of navigating/waiting at airports; a whole lot of effort (and cost) and it's no faster overall. Whereas the train has big seats, giant windows with an interesting view, wifi, cellular coverage, 230v power, access to all of your luggage. Spend the whole 3 hours relaxed and arrive right in the centre of town rather than a stupid airport in the middle of nowhere.
jbscpa 8y ago
My personal favorite was the 5 1/4 inch floppy disk brand name: Janus The first time I saw one of these laying on my desk with the first letter "J" covered up...well, I could never unsee it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ekimekim 8y ago
  One previous employer, an analytics company, had their website's title set to "<Company Name> Analytics". It just so happened that at my browser's default tab width, this title showed up as "<Company Name> Anal..."
AbdullahAliDCom 8y ago
hahahaah, man you're hilarious! You should consider writing comedy blogs! I was chuckling all through out the article "I bet you wear y-fronts" hahahaha - it is something that I heard a lot growing up in the UK (and for the record, yes..no, I didn't wear them)
sudeepj 8y ago
Not exactly a logo, but check out the "Hitler kettle", which was disturbing and funny at the same time. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10084348/Kettle-that-looks-like-Hitler-brews-trouble-for-JCPenney.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...
- soylentcola 8y ago
  I had a similar reaction the first time I was stuck driving behind a Megabus: https://i.imgur.com/Xpm7vN2.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Xpm7vN2.jpg
  - icc97 8y ago
    There's a UK comedian who created a show around trying to get people to view the moustache as Chaplin's instead of Hitler's [0]. [0]: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/reviews/richard-herring-hitler-moustache-underbelly-edinburgh-1773849.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/revi...
softbuilder 8y ago
I once tried to sell a software library as a product. Bad timing, concept, and execution, so it flopped. The thing I remember most is putting the phrase "slam dunk" in my initial product announcement. I took a lot of flack about that from non-Americans. That wasn't so bad, but I let that very temporary error distract and derail my marketing efforts, and that was a mistake. Personally, I'd have stuck with the underwear logo and put that energy elsewhere.
wolfgke 8y ago
While from my cultural bias, I cannot see any "Y pants" in the dodecahedron, the logo of Magento BI (next to "Magento" at the upper left corner of > https://rjmetrics.com/ https://rjmetrics.com/ and also the logo shown in the tweet) looks like - how should I express it - "a hanging male reproductive organ" to me. The four sides of the hexagon surround the region of pubic hair.
- vl 8y ago
  And funny enough their updated main logo on the top left with the extra accents looks exactly like stylized football/soccerball.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > And funny enough their updated main logo on the top left with the extra accents looks exactly like stylized football/soccerball. Perhaps I studied too much mathematics that I cannot see a truncated icosahedron > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Truncated_icosahedron&oldid=848140851 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Truncated_icosahe... which is the typical pattern of a soccer ball > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Football_Pallo_valmiina-cropped.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Football_Pallo_valmi... in a docecahedron: > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Regular_dodecahedron&oldid=851508454 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Regular_dodecahed... :-)
- bonzini 8y ago
  I must say that it took me a while to understand that the problematic logo was not the one you refer to. It looks much more like men boxer briefs than the dodecahedron (after all the seam follows the anatomy).
ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
I grew up in the UK and have never heard of this y front term before, I wonder if it’s regional. I have heard of briefs and tight whiteys. Based on my experience people in the U.K. will take the mickey/piss out of things like this more in general regardless of what it is.
- icc97 8y ago
  If you grew up in England and your dad wore y-fronts then you'd definitely have heard of the term. I grew up specifically in the south-west of England.
- cup-of-tea 8y ago
  I grew up in the UK and we just called them "pants". Pants are far superior to boxer shorts but totally unfashionable for some reason. Now people wear "boxer briefs" which are like more fashionable pants that look a bit like boxers.
  - ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
    That’s what we called them.
whalesalad 8y ago
Based on the title alone I assumed this was gonna be about Daewoo. Their logo is regularly compared to a pair of tighty whities (TIL they are also known as y-fronts). http://www.carlogos.org/Car-Logos/Daewoo-logo.html http://www.carlogos.org/Car-Logos/Daewoo-logo.html
badwolf 8y ago
This is why I think anyone doing a rebrand, logo change, etc... should forego regular focus group testing and such, and instead get a group of teenage boys. They will immediately see if your logo is a dick/butt/boobs/swastika/etc... or if your company name can be taken in a "more vulgar manner"
- econnors 8y ago
  My mom is a strong believer that every expecting parent should poll other kids about names for their baby. She asked her young nephews about potential names when she was pregnant and immediately threw out the ones they made fun of.
  - notatoad 8y ago
    Having previously been a teenage boy, I'm not sure there's really any benefit to discarding names that might get made fun of. Having your name mocked is a pretty inconsequential thing, and probably better than being mocked glfor your physical appearance or mannerisms. If kids want to make fun of somebody, they'll find a way. There's always something.
    - yellowapple 8y ago
      Right, but a name is one of those things that can actually be decided ahead-of-time; no sense in giving the little shits more ammo with which they could mock your kids. That is, unless your goal is to "toughen them up" via the "boy named Sue" strategy.
  - Markoff 8y ago
    i took this into consideration when choosing my children name but honestly I could mock pretty much every name and if I can do it then teenager with bigger imagination can mock literally any name
- notjustanymike 8y ago
  I told my CEO, "always have a 14 year old in the room". One of our proposed logotypes had a two color scheme: first half all blue, second half yellow. The middle letter of our log was "p". The p was the transition letter. The top half was yellow. Eventually I had to point out to the room of marketers, executives, and agency folk that the "p" was peeing on the a that follow. Sigh.
21 8y ago
Could be much worse: https://www.boredpanda.com/worst-logo-fails-ever/ https://www.boredpanda.com/worst-logo-fails-ever/
- jandrese 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure at least a couple of those were intentional.
- hrktb 8y ago
  I like that the list is interspaced with commercial banners with also logos in them. Kind of keeps you on the lookout to see which ones are weird and wich ones aren’t.
romwell 8y ago
The punny section headers are a treat: "A Brief Problem" "Getting to the Bottom of This" "But Y?"
- Aardwolf 8y ago
  More inside the article (not sure if the last 2 were intended): "it’s a bit of a stretch" "lingering question" "laundry list"
jazoom 8y ago
Good, entertaining read. >It appears that y-fronts are a uniquely British phenomenon whose popularity doesn’t extend far past their borders. I don't think you can make that statement after sending a survey only to people in USA and UK. I'm Australian and I definitely see Y-fronts in the original logo. Edit: I thought I'd add an interesting point. In medicine we include "Y-fronts" in the mnemonic to help us remember the order and direction of structures in the femoral triangle. https://radiopaedia.org/articles/femoral-triangle-contents-mnemonic https://radiopaedia.org/articles/femoral-triangle-contents-m...
- megy 8y ago
  Ha amazing, maybe this guy shouldn't be writing to non-US audiences. Or maybe his next article can be "A Case Study in responding to A Case Study in Internationalization (2013)" There are more than 2 countries out there, and more than 2 countries that speak english.
chris_wot 8y ago
Ummm... it's not just Internationalization you need to worry about. Sometimes you should look at the logo from all angles. Literally, in the Office of Government Control's case... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-logo-to-red-faces.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-log...
wiradikusuma 8y ago
Wait. "UK schoolchildren sometimes tease each other with insults like “I bet you wear y-fronts.”" Why is it an insult? I'm wearing it now, and I'm sure it's quite common here (not UK/US).
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  Because there's an implication of childishness (yes, amongst children), that one might be mollycoddled by one's parents who do not let them move on to more seemingly "adult" underwear such as boxer shorts.
xvilka 8y ago
Story reminds me of Yandex.Browser logo, which looked for many like a woman thongs on a ball: https://hsto.org/getpro/geektimes/post_images/11e/fe1/9bb/11efe19bbb12e3d088ac3767fa251fe8.png https://hsto.org/getpro/geektimes/post_images/11e/fe1/9bb/11...
Markoff 8y ago
it looks more like sport bra than underpants

157 points by fludlight 8y ago

dang 8y ago

Discussed in 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10499578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10499578 And in 2013: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6521138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6521138

mintplant 8y ago
From their website, looks like they eventually went back to something close to the original design (and which, really, looks even more like underpants now): https://rjmetrics.com/ https://rjmetrics.com/
- croisillon 8y ago
  they should run a survey in france and be surprised how respondents answer "slip kangourou"
  - mirimir 8y ago
    That's pretty close to a codpiece ;)
- mirimir 8y ago
  Indeed it does. OK, so I can't help myself. Experts Exchange went from expertsexchange.com to experts-exchange.com, and the old hostname used to redirect. But now expertsexchange.com is for sale ;)
- msiggy 8y ago
  And if you scroll down you will see that one of their customers is Me Undies :)

bitwize 8y ago

I have three letters for you if you think this can't happen within your own borders: OGC

asteli 8y ago
Link for reference: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-logo-to-red-faces.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-log... Including this gem: >A spokesman for OGC said: “It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC - and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.”
- Sharlin 8y ago
  Can't beat British humor.
athenot 8y ago
Same with TGV in France. The high-speed train logo, when rotated upside-down turned out to be… a snail. https://yannigroth.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/logo-tgv-escargot.jpg?w=600 https://yannigroth.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/logo-tgv-esca...
- yiyus 8y ago
  So the TGV is the inverse of a snail. That sends the right message, IMO.
  - icc97 8y ago
    Well, a snail on its back, even slower than a snail.
    - sjwright 8y ago
      If you want to laugh at French public transport, the correct unfair stereotype is worker strikes, not slow speeds. Speaking as an occasional tourist, French intercity trains are pretty damn great. Most have top speeds of 300 km/h (190 mph) or higher and achieve these speeds in normal service. Compared to anything you'll find in US or UK, it's incredible. Being able to travel between major cities by high speed train makes short journey air travel outdated. Paris to Marseille is 775 km (481 mi) which takes 7.5h to drive on fast motorways, 3–3.5h by high speed train, and just 1.5h to fly... but then add on ~1h of travel to and from airports and ~1h of navigating/waiting at airports; a whole lot of effort (and cost) and it's no faster overall. Whereas the train has big seats, giant windows with an interesting view, wifi, cellular coverage, 230v power, access to all of your luggage. Spend the whole 3 hours relaxed and arrive right in the centre of town rather than a stupid airport in the middle of nowhere.

jbscpa 8y ago

My personal favorite was the 5 1/4 inch floppy disk brand name: Janus The first time I saw one of these laying on my desk with the first letter "J" covered up...well, I could never unsee it.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ekimekim 8y ago
One previous employer, an analytics company, had their website's title set to "<Company Name> Analytics". It just so happened that at my browser's default tab width, this title showed up as "<Company Name> Anal..."

AbdullahAliDCom 8y ago

hahahaah, man you're hilarious! You should consider writing comedy blogs! I was chuckling all through out the article "I bet you wear y-fronts" hahahaha - it is something that I heard a lot growing up in the UK (and for the record, yes..no, I didn't wear them)

sudeepj 8y ago

Not exactly a logo, but check out the "Hitler kettle", which was disturbing and funny at the same time. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10084348/Kettle-that-looks-like-Hitler-brews-trouble-for-JCPenney.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...

soylentcola 8y ago
I had a similar reaction the first time I was stuck driving behind a Megabus: https://i.imgur.com/Xpm7vN2.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Xpm7vN2.jpg
- icc97 8y ago
  There's a UK comedian who created a show around trying to get people to view the moustache as Chaplin's instead of Hitler's [0]. [0]: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/reviews/richard-herring-hitler-moustache-underbelly-edinburgh-1773849.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/revi...

softbuilder 8y ago

I once tried to sell a software library as a product. Bad timing, concept, and execution, so it flopped. The thing I remember most is putting the phrase "slam dunk" in my initial product announcement. I took a lot of flack about that from non-Americans. That wasn't so bad, but I let that very temporary error distract and derail my marketing efforts, and that was a mistake. Personally, I'd have stuck with the underwear logo and put that energy elsewhere.

wolfgke 8y ago

While from my cultural bias, I cannot see any "Y pants" in the dodecahedron, the logo of Magento BI (next to "Magento" at the upper left corner of > https://rjmetrics.com/ https://rjmetrics.com/ and also the logo shown in the tweet) looks like - how should I express it - "a hanging male reproductive organ" to me. The four sides of the hexagon surround the region of pubic hair.

vl 8y ago
And funny enough their updated main logo on the top left with the extra accents looks exactly like stylized football/soccerball.
- wolfgke 8y ago
  > And funny enough their updated main logo on the top left with the extra accents looks exactly like stylized football/soccerball. Perhaps I studied too much mathematics that I cannot see a truncated icosahedron > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Truncated_icosahedron&oldid=848140851 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Truncated_icosahe... which is the typical pattern of a soccer ball > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Football_Pallo_valmiina-cropped.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Football_Pallo_valmi... in a docecahedron: > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Regular_dodecahedron&oldid=851508454 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Regular_dodecahed... :-)
bonzini 8y ago
I must say that it took me a while to understand that the problematic logo was not the one you refer to. It looks much more like men boxer briefs than the dodecahedron (after all the seam follows the anatomy).

ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago

I grew up in the UK and have never heard of this y front term before, I wonder if it’s regional. I have heard of briefs and tight whiteys. Based on my experience people in the U.K. will take the mickey/piss out of things like this more in general regardless of what it is.

icc97 8y ago
If you grew up in England and your dad wore y-fronts then you'd definitely have heard of the term. I grew up specifically in the south-west of England.
cup-of-tea 8y ago
I grew up in the UK and we just called them "pants". Pants are far superior to boxer shorts but totally unfashionable for some reason. Now people wear "boxer briefs" which are like more fashionable pants that look a bit like boxers.
- ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
  That’s what we called them.

whalesalad 8y ago

Based on the title alone I assumed this was gonna be about Daewoo. Their logo is regularly compared to a pair of tighty whities (TIL they are also known as y-fronts). http://www.carlogos.org/Car-Logos/Daewoo-logo.html http://www.carlogos.org/Car-Logos/Daewoo-logo.html

badwolf 8y ago

This is why I think anyone doing a rebrand, logo change, etc... should forego regular focus group testing and such, and instead get a group of teenage boys. They will immediately see if your logo is a dick/butt/boobs/swastika/etc... or if your company name can be taken in a "more vulgar manner"

econnors 8y ago
My mom is a strong believer that every expecting parent should poll other kids about names for their baby. She asked her young nephews about potential names when she was pregnant and immediately threw out the ones they made fun of.
- notatoad 8y ago
  Having previously been a teenage boy, I'm not sure there's really any benefit to discarding names that might get made fun of. Having your name mocked is a pretty inconsequential thing, and probably better than being mocked glfor your physical appearance or mannerisms. If kids want to make fun of somebody, they'll find a way. There's always something.
  - yellowapple 8y ago
    Right, but a name is one of those things that can actually be decided ahead-of-time; no sense in giving the little shits more ammo with which they could mock your kids. That is, unless your goal is to "toughen them up" via the "boy named Sue" strategy.
- Markoff 8y ago
  i took this into consideration when choosing my children name but honestly I could mock pretty much every name and if I can do it then teenager with bigger imagination can mock literally any name
notjustanymike 8y ago
I told my CEO, "always have a 14 year old in the room". One of our proposed logotypes had a two color scheme: first half all blue, second half yellow. The middle letter of our log was "p". The p was the transition letter. The top half was yellow. Eventually I had to point out to the room of marketers, executives, and agency folk that the "p" was peeing on the a that follow. Sigh.

21 8y ago

Could be much worse: https://www.boredpanda.com/worst-logo-fails-ever/ https://www.boredpanda.com/worst-logo-fails-ever/

jandrese 8y ago
I'm pretty sure at least a couple of those were intentional.
hrktb 8y ago
I like that the list is interspaced with commercial banners with also logos in them. Kind of keeps you on the lookout to see which ones are weird and wich ones aren’t.

romwell 8y ago

The punny section headers are a treat: "A Brief Problem" "Getting to the Bottom of This" "But Y?"

Aardwolf 8y ago
More inside the article (not sure if the last 2 were intended): "it’s a bit of a stretch" "lingering question" "laundry list"

jazoom 8y ago

Good, entertaining read. >It appears that y-fronts are a uniquely British phenomenon whose popularity doesn’t extend far past their borders. I don't think you can make that statement after sending a survey only to people in USA and UK. I'm Australian and I definitely see Y-fronts in the original logo. Edit: I thought I'd add an interesting point. In medicine we include "Y-fronts" in the mnemonic to help us remember the order and direction of structures in the femoral triangle. https://radiopaedia.org/articles/femoral-triangle-contents-mnemonic https://radiopaedia.org/articles/femoral-triangle-contents-m...

megy 8y ago
Ha amazing, maybe this guy shouldn't be writing to non-US audiences. Or maybe his next article can be "A Case Study in responding to A Case Study in Internationalization (2013)" There are more than 2 countries out there, and more than 2 countries that speak english.

chris_wot 8y ago

Ummm... it's not just Internationalization you need to worry about. Sometimes you should look at the logo from all angles. Literally, in the Office of Government Control's case... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-logo-to-red-faces.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-log...

wiradikusuma 8y ago

Wait. "UK schoolchildren sometimes tease each other with insults like “I bet you wear y-fronts.”" Why is it an insult? I'm wearing it now, and I'm sure it's quite common here (not UK/US).

zapzupnz 8y ago
Because there's an implication of childishness (yes, amongst children), that one might be mollycoddled by one's parents who do not let them move on to more seemingly "adult" underwear such as boxer shorts.

xvilka 8y ago

Story reminds me of Yandex.Browser logo, which looked for many like a woman thongs on a ball: https://hsto.org/getpro/geektimes/post_images/11e/fe1/9bb/11efe19bbb12e3d088ac3767fa251fe8.png https://hsto.org/getpro/geektimes/post_images/11e/fe1/9bb/11...

Markoff 8y ago

it looks more like sport bra than underpants