Pop quiz: can you identify these iconic companies by their typefaces alone? Italian graphic designer Emanuele Abrate decided to run an experiment of sorts and trade names for fonts. In his renderings, iconic (non-text) elements sometimes give the brand away, but even without those the color scheme and type can provide clues.

Called simply Logofonts, it spans famous commercial brands including Nike, Spotify, Instagram, Facebook Twitter, Adobe and AirBNB.

Abrate is an art director focused on identity design, and decided to see what he could learn by reverse-engineering these classic graphics.

Perhaps not surprising upon reflection, but most of these major companies use relatively obscure fonts — even if they look a bit like familiar ones, they are a bit more unique than one might guess at a glance.

One of the most recognizable brand marks in the world — the curled alligator on Lacoste shirts — stepped out of the spotlight temporarily to make way for a series of endangered species, helping to raise awareness and fund their protection.

The French label selected the following animals, representing an array of kingdoms from around the globe: the Vaquita dolphin, Burmese roofed turtle, Northern sportive lemur, Javan rhino, Cao vit gibbon, Kakapo parrot, California condor, Saola, Sumatran tiger and Anegada ground iguana.

For each shirt, the number offered corresponded with the number of each species remaining the world This consequently limited series of white polo shirts was an immediate hit, and sold out quickly.

The special line was created in conjunction with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its save our species (SOS) partnership. Retail prices were set at $185 and with each purchase, a contribution helps IUCN and Lacoste battle for nature conservation all over the world.

The redesigned icons, meanwhile, are both familiar yet surprising, using similar scale, art and color strategies to the original, but simultaneously standing out — a good conversation starter for wearers concerned about the extinction crisis. Given the success of this endeavor, perhaps they will run additional such mini-series for other species, further raising awareness as well as money for pressing preservation causes.

Aside from outliers like Adidas, which acquired its logo for a few thousand dollars and two bottles of booze, big brands often spend millions (or more) on logo design, but how memorable are the results?

“The logos of global corporations like Apple, Starbucks, and Foot Locker are designed to create instant brand associations in the minds of billions who see them every day,” explains Signs.com “But how accurately can we remember the features and colors of these famous symbols?”

They then polled 150 Americans to draw 10 logos each and evaluated the collective memory of those participants. Results ranged from inaccurate blobs to highly detailed drawings. In some cases, participants missed the mark, but the overall recall was surprisingly good.

Lots of interesting details arose from the analysis, like the natural propensity of some participants to add a stalk to the Apple logo or draw on aspects of earlier versions rather than the present iteration. One might think with its ubiquitous product placements it would be immune to such mistakes, but no. Dominoes, 7-Eleven and other iconic brands were also included in the experiment, as well as detailed analysis of each logo’s evolution.

Our brains recognize brands before we even get to the text … but what happens when that second of the process process yields the reverse of what we expect?

In this series of experimental logo swaps by Graham Smith, our expectations are subverted right at the point of recognition – Coke replaces Pepsi, UPS becomes FedEx and so forth in realms ranging from fast food to digital technology.

The result is a kind of temporary cognitive dissonance, and poignant reminder of just how much we rely on visual cues – from shape and layout to color and typography – to interpret input and apprehend iconic designs.

Some of the trades work relatively seamlessly – a surprise number actually work visually – you could almost believer that Twitter, Facebook and Google could simply have gone a different direction with their designs.

But given our own familiarity biases when viewing them, it is hard to say in some cases, too. Either way, it is clear that our experience and associations play a major part in the power of branding.

There is something simply elegant about type-embossed metal – in part the association with classic high-end manual cameras. This logo series takes that typology and applies it to a series of contemporary companies.

Antrepo was inspired by brands like Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Minolta, greatly impressed by how simple (effectively logo-free) lettering made a bold and compelling statement in each case.

From the firm: “Canon AE-1, Nikon FTn, Ashai Pentax ESII, Minolta XG-1 – these cameras are some of the Japanese 35mm SLR cameras from the vintage ’70s and ’80s, the “Made in Japan” era, when Japan set the global standard of producing quality.”

In these remakes (featuring Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google, YouTube and more) some of the typographic styles and logo figures are still present, but in every case there is something breath-taking about the simplification to a monochrome, black-on-steel look. Not to mention: this also follows the existing apparent trend toward re-simplifying logos throughout online industries.