letsgomets1212 Posted May 28, 2022 Share Posted May 28, 2022 So I have a question about the FedEx logo I have never been able to find an answer to, and figured if anybody knew the answer, it would be on this board. I'm sorry for making an entire topic for such a trivial thing, but it's always bothered me and I need answers! We all know about the hidden arrow in the "Ex". But what has always bothered me is that the letters aren't all on the same "floor". The E and D in FED dip lower than all the other letters in the logo. See my image below. Is there any reason for this, or is it just bad design? Every time I see it on a truck, it bothers me so much (I know I'm crazy). Would love to hear any answers/explanations/theories. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
officeglenn Posted May 28, 2022 Share Posted May 28, 2022 That's a thing you'll find with a lot of fonts. If the letterforms are round at the top and bottom, they'll ascend/descend just a touch farther than flat tops and bottoms. It's a visual thing; I don't know the actual science behind it, but it helps make everything look even at a glance. If the rounded letterforms didn't ascend/descend a bit farther, it would look weirder and more uneven. The example of this I always think of is the Green Bay Packers' wordmark: 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packerfan21396 Posted May 28, 2022 Share Posted May 28, 2022 The typographical term for that is called overshoot, and it's meant to compensate for the inaccuracies of how our brains see things. In Hoefler&Co's blog post about their font, Ideal Sans, they described it well saying, "Typefaces are born from the struggle between rules and results. Squeezing a square about 1% helps it look more like a square; to appear the same height as a square, a circle must be measurably taller. The two strokes in an X aren’t the same thickness, nor are their parallel edges actually parallel; the vertical stems of a lowercase alphabet are thinner than those of its capitals; the ascender on a d isn’t the same length as the descender on a p, and so on. For the rational mind, type design can be a maddening game of drawing things differently in order to make them appear the same." 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
letsgomets1212 Posted June 9, 2022 Author Share Posted June 9, 2022 Hmm interesting, I guess that makes sense! I think it just looks extra pronounced for me on the FedEx logo because I usually see it as a large image on a truck, so it stands out more. I also have a little bit of "once you see it, you can't unsee it". I feel like because the FedEx logo is already a custom font, they could line it up and it would still look good, but people who make a lot more money than me would seemingly disagree. Thanks for the explanation, appreciate it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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