The link above is pure urban legend, circulated by email by gullible Taiwanese college students. The small “n” is not a magnet to attract customers or money. It is a DESIGN choice, made by the designer of the logo himself/herself. We will only know the truth behind all this when that designer is identified and he/she speaks up and explains. I just wrote to the PR department of 711 HQ and am awaiting a reply. When I hear, I will post the 711 reply letter here.

My case is that the designer just wanted to make a graceful, cool, neat design, and the lowercase “n” at the end just came as an inspiration while doodling.

What is most interesting about the logo is this: that so few people never even knew the last n was lowercased. For years and years. I must have looked at the logo for at least 25 years, and never once did I ever notice it. It took a high school student in Taiwan to bring it to my attention. I had never never “seen” it before. NOW, I see it everyday. I think Time or Newsweek should weigh in on this one. Or at least boingboing.net!

True, forget Time or Newsweek, who needs em. But boingboing.net would be a great way to reach millions of viewers and finally get a definitive answer. But yes, Japundit rules!

”It is really simple, it is a lower case ‘n’ because of the limited space horizontaly. If the ‘n’ were upper case it would be difficult to read as the type face is bold. Lower case ‘n’ reads cleaner. Simple. ”

i got to hand to you, Tony, you make it sound so simple. AND you could be right. any idea who the designer was?

Just received a letter from the PR dept at 711 in Texas.

QUOTE:

“To the best of our corporate research here at 7-Eleven, it is
believed that the wife of
the company’s president during the 1960s thought the look of the name
in the logo
‘7-ELEVEN’ seemed a little harsh with ALL CAPS, and she suggested that the N be
changed to lower
case to make the logo look more graceful,” accordiong to Margaret Chabris,
Public Relations Director at 7-Eleven headquarteres in Dallas, Texas.

NOW THE WORLD KNOWS …. THE REST OF THE STORY. Maybe Japundit is the first website worldwide to report this…

7-Eleven Beats a Path to the Big Cities in the USA, now after experience in Japan and Taiwan….

By LOUISE STORY
Published: July 9, 2005
NY Times

THE Big Gulp is returning to Manhattan. 7-EleveN is opening a store at 107 East 23rd Street here. The company’s last one closed in 1982. The opening is part of a broader expansion in cities, including Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles. The urban stores will be about half the size of their suburban counterparts.

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Jerry W. Hoefer for The New York Times
James W. Keyes, the chief executive of 7-Eleven, is about to open a store in Gramercy Park.
7-Eleven, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, has reported 34 consecutive quarters of increased sales at stores open at least a year, as it has introduced more branded foods, made more frequent fresh-food deliveries and begun offering financial service products like prepaid shopping cards, prepaid cellphones, money orders and automated teller machines.

Last week, 7-Eleven’s chief executive of five years, James W. Keyes, discussed the company’s expansion plans.

Q: Many of your suburban stores bring in lots of money and foot traffic from the gas pumps. How will your urban stores attract customers without having gas?

A: If you look at gasoline as a convenience in suburban America, it is a very natural thing for us to make it more convenient to buy gas in a suburban area. You could say the same thing about coffee. Perhaps in suburban Dallas, someone might have their coffee at home. In New York, they might grab their coffee and run.

Q: Why do you think residents of urban areas will shop at 7-Eleven rather than their local delicatessens, drugstores, coffee shops and newsstands?

A: We have an advantage over our competitors. Most convenience stores get a delivery of product two or three times a week. Twice a week is normal. If we’re able to have daily delivery, we can have the freshest milk, the freshest bakery products. In Manhattan, the truck comes once a day. All over the country now the truck comes at least once a day. In Tokyo, for example, we have a truck that comes three times a day.

The ultimate vision is the breakfast product to come at 5 a.m., and the lunch to come close to noon, and, some day, we will have a line of products people can pick up on the way home and that would come sometime in the afternoon.

Q: There are about 11,000 7-Elevens in Japan – that’s twice as many as the number that are in the United States – and the Seven-Eleven Japan Company is a large 7-Eleven shareholder. Why is 7-Eleven so popular there and how are 7-Elevens different in Japan?

A: 7-Eleven is very popular throughout Asia. The Asian consumers are using 7-Eleven almost like an extension of their kitchens, their refrigerators. Our urban stores are much more comparable to our Asian stores because of the density of the population.

If I’m standing on a street corner in Taiwan, I can see as many as four 7-Elevens in view. In most of the United States, we would keep our 7-Elevens at least a mile apart, but in a city, you’ll find we could have two 7-Elevens within a block.

Q: A few weeks ago 7-Eleven announced that it would accept a contact-less payment system with J. P. Morgan Chase. How will it work and why are you offering it?

A: The contact-less payment system is one of many initiatives we have under way to make it easier and faster to pay at 7-Eleven. Another example is our prepaid convenience card for those who don’t have a credit card or maybe want a faster transaction.

The contact-less payment system is now rolling out nationwide. When you walk up to the reader instead of swiping the card you’ll use the existing PIN pad that we have right there, but you’ll see that all you have to do is wave the card past the machine and it will automatically read it.

In Europe and in parts of Asia, people aren’t using cash, they’re using these kinds of smart card capabilities to basically eliminate the need to carry coins and paper money.

The small “n” in the 7-ELEVEn logo is a signal to the ultra-secret Inner Monogolian Masonic Order 33-1/3rd Degree that it is safe to eat 7-ELEVEn’s Large Cheese-stuffed Hot Dogs on Sunday (7) nights after 11:09 (“n”= 9) p.m. All other times it is forbidden. Hope this helps.