Cool post at Pink Tentacle:
http://www.pinktentacle.com/2009/09/typo...-katakana/
"Japanese town logos — official symbols designed to communicate the identity of each municipality — come in a vast array of shapes and colors. Many of these municipal symbols incorporate typographical elements (particularly kanji, hiragana, katakana, and Roman letters) into their designs. In most cases, the stylized characters are straightforward and easy to spot (even if you don’t read Japanese), but sometimes you have to bend your eyes to see them. The more complex logos encode the name of the town into a puzzle-like symbol that begs to be deciphered. Here are a few typographic town logos that make clever use of hiragana and katakana characters. (The examples are arranged in Japanese alphabetical order and include a mixture of both alphabets.)"
Lots of pictures and captions.
http://www.pinktentacle.com/2009/09/typo...-katakana/
"Japanese town logos — official symbols designed to communicate the identity of each municipality — come in a vast array of shapes and colors. Many of these municipal symbols incorporate typographical elements (particularly kanji, hiragana, katakana, and Roman letters) into their designs. In most cases, the stylized characters are straightforward and easy to spot (even if you don’t read Japanese), but sometimes you have to bend your eyes to see them. The more complex logos encode the name of the town into a puzzle-like symbol that begs to be deciphered. Here are a few typographic town logos that make clever use of hiragana and katakana characters. (The examples are arranged in Japanese alphabetical order and include a mixture of both alphabets.)"
Lots of pictures and captions.
Edited: 2009-09-23, 12:58 am

Most of them are so well hidden that I'd have never guessed there was anything there besides a cool looking symbol.