Adventures in Logoland: Ford's "I-3150" Pickup?

Ronnie Schreiber
by Ronnie Schreiber

I work with logos in my day job and it’s always nice to see a clever logo design. Maybe I’m strange but things like the negative-space arrow in the FedEx brand excite me.

That’s why I’m a bit perplexed about the current badge Ford uses on its F-150 pickup trucks.

Maybe it’s a bit too clever. They decided to make the numeric part of the alphanumeric the same height as the “arms” of the F that precedes the number, and they created the F out of negative space within the outline of the badge. That ends up, at least to my eyes, making part of the F look like the numeral 3. Now, just like the FedEx arrow, I can’t look at the F-150 badge and see it as anything other than I3150.

Can you think of any other car or truck badge that looks like something other than what the designer intended?

Ronnie Schreiber
Ronnie Schreiber

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, the original 3D car site.

More by Ronnie Schreiber

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  • Sckid213 Sckid213 on Jan 29, 2016

    I strongly dislike the "TITANIUM" badges Ford puts on their cars (not trucks). They overpower the badges on the tailgate of whatever they're on. Oftentimes the Titanium badge is in bright chrome, all caps sans serif, while the name of the car is in dark chrome in script. I bet more than one person has walked into a Ford dealership asking for a "Ford Titanium." Chevy looks to be handling this much better with the badge for their "PREMIER" trim. Somehow the new logos for JETTA and PASSAT look very cheap to me. It's the inflated font combined with the italic, I believe. Looks low-end. One of my secret favorites was Plymouth's "Sundance" badge. Literally looked like it was dancing!

  • Ahnuconun Ahnuconun on Jan 29, 2016

    I3150? Bwahah!!! In a similar vein, I once worked with a guy that was a service advisor at a Ford dealer. He told me that a lady one day showed up and booked her truck in for service and told him it was a "FISO". You know where this is going right? Having been with Ford for 15 years at that point, he was completely at a loss. Until he walked out to the lot with the customer and realized it was an F-150. LOLZ!

  • A strolling player A strolling player on Jan 30, 2016

    The Pioneer logo looks like the lower half of a half-squatting man peeing on the ground, if that's what you mean.

  • Heather Schroeder Heather Schroeder on Jan 06, 2018

    I'm here because I just was behind a F150 with a badge I hadn't seen before and it looked like 3150 to me and I wondered if it was paying homage to some type of classic Ford series, so I was just going to research it. Like the original poster I cannot unsee it, nor the Fed Ex arrow I learned about recently.

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