What if every great brand had its own digital lipogram? | by Ian G | May, 2026 | MediumSitemapOpen in appSign up<br>Sign in

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What if every great brand had its own digital lipogram?

Ian G

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A lip.art exercise — 22 enigmas waiting to be solved<br>You may have already encountered abcdfhijkmnpqrstuvwxyz.com — the URL that sparked the concept of the digital lipogram ( a double dl) : an address built from the entire Latin alphabet, minus the letters of a famous brand. Where absence is the message.<br>The exercise is simple. Take a brand. Remove its distinct letters from the alphabet. What remains?<br>The results are — occasionally — astonishing.<br>The rules of the game<br>Each URL below contains every letter of the Latin alphabet except those found in one well-known brand name. No brand is explicitly named. Some you will solve in seconds. Others will take longer. A few may never reveal themselves without a hint.<br>That is the nature of lip.art.<br>The enigmas — from easiest to hardest

① bcdefghijklmnopqstuvwxy<br>Only 3 letters missing, one of the easiest dl . The shortest removal in this collection. A fashion giant whose name contains just three distinct letters — including the last letter of the alphabet. Fast, global, controversial.<br>How many seconds did it take you?

② bcdfghijkmnoqrstuvwxyz<br>4 letters missing, quite easy: A, E, L, P. A company well known. Its logo is a piece of fruit. Its founder revolutionised the way we listen to music, make calls, and carry computers in our pockets.

③ abcdfghjlmopqrstuvwxyz<br>4 letters missing, easy: E, I, K, N. Three letters and a tick. The most recognised logo on the planet. “Just do it”.

④ acdfghijklmnopqstvwxyz<br>4 letters missing but very very easy to find: B, E, R, U. One word. One letter away from a German city. A button, a map, a car — and a revolution in urban mobility.

⑤ bcdefghjklmnopqrtuwxyz<br>4 letters missing: A, I, S, V. Four letters on a blue rectangle in your wallet. Accepted everywhere — almost.

⑥ abcdefghjlmnpqrsuvwxyz<br>4 letters missing: I, K, O, T. A video, a sound, a loop. The app that rewired attention spans worldwide — and alarmed governments from Washington to Brussels.

⑦ bcdfghijklnopqrsuvwxyz<br>4 letters missing: A, E, M, T. A social network rebranded into a metaverse ambition. Its founder testified before the US Senate and barely blinked.

⑧ bcdfghjlmnopqrstuvwxyz<br>4 letters missing: A, E, I, K. Flat-pack furniture. Meatballs. An empire built on the idea that good design should be affordable. Swedish, global, and quietly dominant.

⑨ bdefghijkmnpqrstuvwxyz<br>4 letters missing: A, C, L, O. Red. White. A curved bottle. A formula kept secret for over a century. The most recognised taste in the world — and the most debated.

⑩ abcdfhijkmnpqrstuvwxyz<br>4 letters missing: E, G, L, O. You already know this one. The URL that started it all. A double digital lipogram (dl ) incluing the company that indexes the world — and whose the four cardinal letters, absent from an alphabet, became the first documented work of digital lip.art.<br>And those same 4 letters also spell the name of a famous Danish toy.<br>Would you be able to find another double digital lipogram (ddl) ?

⑪ bcdfghijkmnopqruvwxyz<br>5 letters missing: A, E, L, S, T. An electric car. A rocket company. A tunnel. A man who wants to colonise Mars and bought a very famous social network.

⑫ bcdefghijklpqrstuvwxy<br>5 letters missing: A, M, N, O, Z. An easy one. The everything store. Named after the world’s largest river. Its founder went to space in his own rocket.

⑬ bcdghjklmnopqstuvwxyz<br>5 letters missing: A, E, F, I, R. Red. Yellow. A prancing horse. The most romanticised car brand in history — and one of the most profitable per unit ever made.

⑭ abcdfghijkmnpqstuvwyz<br>5 letters missing: E, L, O, R, X. A crown. A green dial. A wrist. The ultimate symbol of mechanical precision and discreet wealth.

⑮ abcdfghjklmnopqsuvxyz<br>5 letters missing: E, I, R, T, W. A blue bird. Then an X. What a clue! A platform that once toppled governments — and was then bought by one very famous tech man, who renamed it after a single letter.

⑯ cdefghjklmopqstuvwxyz<br>5 letters missing: A, B, I, N, R. An acronym that became a verb. A spare room, a sofa, a castle — the platform that disrupted hospitality without owning a single hotel.

⑰ abcfghjklmopqrtuvwxz<br>6 letters missing: D, E, I, N, S, Y. A mouse. A castle. A magic kingdom. The company that owns more childhood memories than any other — and more intellectual property than most countries.

⑱ bcdefhijklopqrtvwxyz<br>6 letters missing: A, G, M, N, S, U. A galaxy. A screen. A chip. The world’s largest smartphone manufacturer by volume — and a fierce rival to the fruit company in ⑫.

⑲ bcdfghjklmqrstuvwxyz<br>6 letters missing: A, E, I, N, O, P. Two letters and a capitalised third. A laboratory that may be building the most consequential technology in human history — and recently...