For a company that operates in Hong Kong, where both Chinese and English are official languages, it is important to have a corporate brand that looks just as good in both. Here are two corporate logos that achieve this in an exceedingly clever way.
The first is for the ‘CLP Group’ – once known as ‘China Light and Power’. The central device of the logo is the 中 – the Chinese character for ‘China’ – with is composed of the English characters of ‘C’ ‘L’ and ‘P’.
The other is for ‘Kowloon Motor Bus’, also known as ‘KMB’. The large ‘K’ device in the logo represents the ‘K’ of the English company name, while at the same time resembling 九 – part of ‘九龍’, the Chinese name for Kowloon.
Both logos blew my mind when I first discovered their hidden meanings!
Further reading
- Two Names, One Logo: Integrating Chinese and Non-Chinese Names in Logo Design by Rob Meyerson
- Square Word Calligraphy by Xu Bing (At first glance it appears to be Chinese characters, but in fact it is a new way of rendering English)
So your Dad told you?
I was actually on a bus looking at an electricity substation when I noticed the way ‘CLP’ was interleaved – the KMB logo took a bit longer to discover.
Nice post, I also love these logos. Another one is that of the Festival Walk shopping centre. It looks like an “F” (for Festival), it looks like the Chinese character “jau”, and it looks like it’s walking!
Thanks for the additional example – here is the Festival Walk logo for reference:
http://www.festivalwalk.com.hk/images/header/logo.jpg