12 hidden images in sports logos

Sports logos. We look at them all the time. From box scores to standings, we see these images so frequently that it’s easy to miss elements that are staring us in the face.

Some logos have hidden design features that are intentionally placed to tip their cap to the team’s history, others have subtle design elements that make sense on a close reading — while some are just weird optical illusions when you look at the logo a different way. While there are dozens of examples of hidden images in logos, these are our favorites.

King of the “hidden in plain sight” is the ‘F’ inside the Falcons logo. Also the feathers slightly resemble ‘As’ but that’s a little more tenuous.

Yup, it checks out. Honestly, I’m mad that I’ve looked at this logo so many times and never saw it. It’s so dang obvious.

If the Mavericks’ horse had hair the ‘M’ would be in the horse’s hair. Well, at least I’ve never really thought about the Mavericks’ horse being a real horse. I always kinda assumed it was a robotic future horse like that ‘80s cartoon The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers.

This is one of those ones I’ve always had a hard time buying into — but I’ll admit the Panthers logo at least vaguely represents the outline of North Carolina. Purists will claim it’s supposed to include South Carolina too — but I just don’t see it.

The 2012 refresh of the Panthers logo rounded the edges, making it even more difficult for this to be accurate — but the original logo is kind of close.

I honestly had no clue how close the shape was to a rocket on a launch stand until I overlaid the logo on an actually photo of a shuttle launch. Bravo, logo designers.

The thing that’s great about this logo is that it doesn’t encapsulate one specific thing, but rather the entire concept of “wild”. The outline is a bear’s head, there’s a stand of trees in the middle — those ones are obvious. But the mouth is a running river and the eye of the bear is the North Star, which is a tip of the cap to the Minnesota North Stars, who played until 1993 before moving to Dallas.

The feathers a the back of the eagle’s head are shaped in the letter “E.” Which a lot like the Falcons logo is something we probably didn’t need to know in order to identify this as an eagle, but here we are.

There’s not much hidden here, but the Whalers logo was a lesson in simplicity and perfect execution. The whale tail is obvious, but the “H” in the negative space is a master stroke. One of the best logos of all time, hands down.

Looks like a regular snake head, right? The two halves are “D” and “B” respectively.

One of the best, hands down. There is no way logo designers intended for a hidden preaching robot to be in the Bulls’ logo, but it definitely looks like one with a furrowed brow and scowl, reading from his robo-bible at a pulpit.

Turn the logo on its side, imagine the clam is wearing one of those judge wigs and I rest my case.

This one isn’t really hidden, it’s more of a debate. Does the Oriole have its mouth close and smiling, or completely agape — maybe it just told a really bad dad joke? You decide.