Designing cars isn’t as simple as doodling on a notepad. That clean sheet of paper can very soon look cluttered by the time you’ve accounted for the packaging requirements of the engineering team and marketing department, safety legislation, efficiency-promoting aerodynamics, and, quite often, the conservative tastes of the average car buyer. It’s no wonder so many cars and SUVs look alike.

So, as an automaker, how do you make your car stand out from the one in the next lane? There’s the grille, of course, but while companies like BMW are pushing them to the max, the switch to electric cars, which don’t have the same need for cooling, means many new cars go without.

Related: What’s With All The Lobster Claw Taillight Designs These Days?

And then there’s the advances made in lighting technology over the last 20 years, which has enabled automakers to create illuminated signatures that make their cars instantly recognizable at night.

But as Automotive News highlighted this week (paywall) another trend is taking off. To help us identify specific models, carmakers are increasingly going back to basics, and simply plastering the model name of their car across the nose and tail in letters so huge they look like they were drawn up by the same people who make those cartoonish household telephones for the visually impaired.

Another Trend: The Fake Exhaust Holes Of The Paris Auto Show Floor

The idea’s not exactly new. Think about the Chevrolet lettering on the tail of a mid-century Advance Design pick-up. Or the jumbo Ford script on the nose of an F-150 Raptor. But it’s increasingly crossing over to the car and SUV world, and being used to pick out model names, rather than just the brand behind them, much like Range Rover was spelled out across the hood of the first version of the luxury SUV in 1970 – and still is on its modern descendants.

Like the Range Rover it wants to beat, the new Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer have their names written large across both ends of the car (and no Jeep badges).

But not as large as the Ford Bronco, whose name is picked out on the front grille, and the rear panel.

Chevrolet’s Suburban shouts its name loud and proud on the rear.

As does the Hyundai Palisade (though you could probably tell it by the smell)…

…Nissan’s Armada and Pathfinder…

…and Hyundai’s new Santa Cruz light truck.

While the Hummer EV gets an illuminated name badge across its fake grille.

Kia’s Telluride wears its name proudly on both ends.

…at the same time, other automakers are shouting their brand names such as Skoda on the latest Octavia and Citroen on the all-new C5 X.

We like the trend, and it looks like it might be here for a while. But we’re kind of relieved it wasn’t around when Daihatsu was still making the Naked.