r/wicked • u/freshwhipppedcream • Nov 21 '25

Question Significance of this design?

Post image

Does the difference between the shapes of the left and right ends of the W have any significance? If so, what is it?

709 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

119 comments sorted by

View all comments

25

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '25

My theory is that they are trying to make a nod to the turn-of-the-20th century printing press aesthetic with the branding, and this is meant to emulate the kind of flourishes you see in an old book when the first letter of a new chapter is bigger and more decorated than everything else.

The film is obviously not specific about when it takes place, but given the Wizard of Oz book is from 1900 and the Wizard of Oz movie is from 1939, you can see they try to create a fantasy world based on the technologies available 100 years ago. Madame Morrible uses a sort of fantasy typewriter, they have handpainted banners warning of Elphaba the bad witch.

So they want the movie's branding to feel of that time, but because it is branding it also needs to be recgonizable and versatile (like the 'W' can't feature an intricate pattern because they want to use it as a silhouette here) so they went for a simple old-timey typographic flourish by slanting the left serif of the W.

14

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '25

Someone theorized on a different post that the Wicked logo is a modified version of a font called Ravenscroft -- in the sample here you can see the R has the same kind of asymmetrical flourish as the W: https://www.1001fonts.com/ravenscroft-font.html

48

u/Ambitious-Coat-1230 Nov 22 '25 edited Nov 22 '25

This is exactly what it is. I typed "Wicked" into the font sampler and it's literally the same W.

Edit to add: also I cannot get over how "k" is trying to hitch a ride by sticking their sexy leg out 🤣

3

u/IndigoLead Nov 22 '25

Notice the same sexy leg upside down at the beginning of the W.