Once again the logo beast has reared its (somewhat) ugly head! a while ago I commented on how bad the new AT&T logo was and asked, “Why would a company with a strong logo design that has been around for ages change it to something visually uncomfortable and simply bad?” Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say “bad” but certainly not as strong, solid or even as well thought out as it was. I’m just floored by a lot of companies like AT&T who give the go-ahead on these redesigns instead of spending the money on something that would actually propel the company further.
My problematic logo of the day is the new Pepsi logo. WOW? What? I haven’t quite read into the reasoning or the meaning of the new logo, but I have heard that the strange shape is supposed to resemble a “smile”. Bottom line is this: once again a big corporation has joined the craptastic depths of businesses who pay top dollar for mediocre (at best) work. Take a look below.
Allow me to say right off the bat, the Mountain Dew design is lame. I understand that a lot of tech geeks use Mt. Dew as fuel but that doesn’t mean that you need to change the font to a techy designed font or bow to that demographic of your market. I think they would even say it looks like ass.
Was there a point here? It doesn’t seem so to me. I guess they thought that since the Pepsi logo was gonna be redesigned, they might as well do the rest too… Well, bad idea guys. Looks terrible.
Now, On to Pepsi. The first thing that I noticed when looking at the new Pepsi bottle logos was that the “smile” is different sizes on all labels! This makes no sense to me. I tried to make a little sense of it by saying that the size of the white smile dictates the amount of calories or its “health benefits” but that didn’t work either! Notice that the diet Pepsi logo has the smallest “smile”. The regular Pepsi logo has a bigger smile and the Pepsi Zero logo design has the “smile” the largest of the three. It just doesn’t seem like these were well thought out and explored; two things that should seriously have been done considering the amount of money connected with the product. Regardless of whether or not there is a “method to the madness”, without an explanation it’s still poor design.
I don’t mind the font so much, in fact there are some postings on Brand New that point out it looks like the old old diet Pepsi logo. I do however dislike it’s placement and size. Personally I think it would have looked better horizontally under the “smile” logo. That way its still balanced and just plain looks better. Along with the placement, the sub text (0 cal carb sugar) doesn’t always appear centered under the logo and in the case of the regular Pepsi the empty space under the logo is really bothersome. With so few elements “white space” cannot be an excuse. The layout is just plain lazy.
One of the last things I will mention has nothing to do with the logo, but the shape of the bottle. I know I’m not the first to notice it but it does look quite phallic to me. I think that Pepsi needs to stop wasting time and money on logo recreations and bottle shaping and pay more attention to their marketing and advertising. Oh, wait… but logo creation and bottle design go hand-in-hand with marketing and advertising! Oh well, looks like another wasted marketing budget!
Overall I’d say that the New Pepsi Logo missed the mark. Not exactly by miles but certainly by a far stretch. I just don’t understand why some companies feel that they need a new or modern logo. In the case of AT&T and Pepsi its just a few really bad decisions and bad tweaks on an already strong logo design. I’m sure it won’t impact their bottom line at all but honestly, how much do you really need to push into advertising and marketing for Pepsi?
Would you like a drink with that? Coke or Pepsi?
October 29th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
[...] Once again the logo beast has reared its (somewhat) ugly head! a while ago I commented on how bad the new AT&T logo was and asked, “Why would a company with a strong logo design that has been around for ages change it to something … New Pepsi Logo [...]
October 30th, 2008 at 8:01 am
A smile? Maybe a smirk or a sneer. Nice breakdown.
December 1st, 2008 at 6:59 pm
when the logo sux and the layout is boring the only thing you see it that bottle shape…
December 15th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Reading all the negative comments on Brand New’s page made my head hurt.
I rather like the new logo/s. I think they look sleek and futuristic.
After the suggestion I see the smile (facing to our right and up), which reminds me of the Rasin Bran sun.. i think sunglasses would be a nice addition to the new Pepsi globe from time to time (bring back some Ray Charles songs?).
Also, the smile is smallest on the Diet Pepsi (as the diet drinker wants to be small), medium on the regular Pepsi, and large on the Pepsi Max (it’s Max - I think you had it confused with Coke Zero). Assuming that Pepsi Max has some energy kick in it, these make perfect sense to me.
I agree that the layout goes too far with the minimalist approach - after all this is an exciting, fizzy product - but I can’t believe the responses on this are such a landslide!!!!!!
December 16th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Thanks for the feedback! I feel that the main point here is that the design is well lacking. Especially for a company like Pepsi Co. The real thing that angers designers is the mere fact that they changed it in the first place.
They [Pepsi] really did break some standard (basic) graphic design rules when following through with this revamp. The logo changing between bottle variations bothers me tremendously. Though I understand what they were trying to get at, it still looks sloppy. The layout is weak plain and simple. If it were aligned properly I’d feel better about it. The font choice was okay, however on two of the bottles “Pepsi” is large and on the max bottle, the “Max” is large and the “Pepsi” is not… again, I get it, but it’s very inconsistent.
January 30th, 2009 at 10:40 am
i actually am pretty fond of the icon. i remember seeing them in the store over christmas. (actually my cousin brought it up in conversation that pepsi rebranded and led me to look at them)
i think the design is a little off, but my own personal issue is the crossbar on the “e”… just doesn’t sit well with me. the typeface is very geometric and the swirl doesn’t fit.
on rebranding in general, i think coke rebranding is mucch more of an issue. pepsi’s demographic is, well, the peepi generation:) i think rebranding for them is a fresh way of keeping relevant. plus, the moment i saw the icon i thought obama… if you’re pepsi, why not ride that monster tidal wave rolling through your target on the DL.
i actually like the mountain dew one also… but then again i welcomed the CS3/CS4 icons with open arms when most of our world was salty. i do think the bottle and label definitely need to be reworked for it though. i don’t care for it so much in it’s package.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:27 am
I agree with you on the Obama similarities and I had read and seen the same, and while I agree that it could have just been riding the wave, I think it was more of just a flub. Resembles, yes, on purpose… eeh, maybe. I’m still salty about the logo differences and the layout of the labels… still uncentered and just dont look good. You’re gonna have to explain the Coke thing though. I think their branding has been pretty solid. Whether it’s “Coke” or “Coca-Cola” they both have stuck with their logo mark. They switched some color combos, but overall, an overhaul, it is not.
February 2nd, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I think the crappy Mountain Dew logo/label does a great job of conveying the crappy drink that’s inside.
As much as I like minimalism, it just doesn’t work for soda. I never noticed the inconsistencies with the Pepsi labels. That’s bush league work!
As far as Pepsi redoing their logo…is that not a good thing for designers? Do we really want companies to stay content with what they have, taking away the potential for a huge client/portfolio work for some lucky bastard? Yes, I seriously doubt big corporations like Pepsi would use a freelancer or a smaller studio, and some bajillion dollar firm dropped the ball on this. But if every company/client would say, “let’s stick with what we have”, wouldn’t designers eventually run out of work?
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I agree with you on the first 2 parts, crappy logo, crappy drink… although I do partake in the “geek fuel” from time to time. Yes, the inconsistencies are definitely “Bush League” however I do somewhat disagree with the redesign being a good thing for designers. While I agree that it would be incredible to have a logo in my book with the name recognition of Pepsi, I feel that the lackluster job of actually creating the logo has put Graphic Designers back a bit. Basically it does nothing for you or I but make designers look bad and makes bad designers think that they are good, get me? I would be incredibly jealous of another designer that got that opportunity and I would call them a lucky bastard too, but if the work didn’t seem up to par, I would still be critiquing just as I am now. And if the tables were turned, I guess it wouldn’t matter b/c 1) my logo would be better and 2) I’d have a s-load of money so I wouldn’t care what anyone else thought.
The “stick with what we have” argument doesn’t really translate here because how many of these big corporations actually go through a complete re-branding? Two that I have written about, Pepsi and AT&T, have tried to modernize their look and failed… epically, IMHO. The idea behind a brand is that you stick with it and if you were lucky enough to have a famous designer do your original logo (as was the case for AT&T) then why would you change it? Certainly AT&T and Pepsi have no problem selling products. The choice is ALWAYS, Coke or Pepsi, you can’t avoid it. So what is the real need there? The second part of that argument that doesn’t fit is that new businesses are always sprouting up. There is always work to be had by designers so sticking with what they have isn’t going to happen on the grand scale that would put us out of business.
February 2nd, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I don’t really think one designer/company f-ing up a logo redesign would really bring the entire design community back as a whole. If you hear a crappy song on the radio (how can you listen to the radio and not hear a crappy song?), you don’t assume an entire genre of music is bad, just that particular musician. Bad designers think they’re good because they somehow get through life without people telling them they suck. So far, every write up or review I’ve read about the Pepsi logo has basically said how bad it is and how much of a waste of money it was.
I think the reasons these companies change their logos is because they have a few suits sitting in an office and think that by making themselves appear “hip” and “cool”, they’ll increase sales. If Coke called you tomorrow and said, “Mr. Admin, we want you to create a new logo and will pay you $1 million for it.” you’d tell them, “no thanks, I think you should keep the logo you have now.”? If you make a crappy logo, what do you care? You’re now $1 million richer! Coke will be out $1 million, but they’ll make that back within 5 minutes.
And who’s to say it’s the designer who’s at fault? How do we not know it was the client who had “a vision” of what they thought it should look like and gave the designer change after change after pointless change until they got what they wanted, not what was necessarily best?
Many a design I’ve seen transform from something beautiful into a horrible, centered text, font sizes vary a point or two, drop shadowed to hell abomination just because “the customer’s always right” and we have to do what the client wants so we can keep their business.
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:43 pm
I believe the pepsi max smile is largest of the three because it is being marketed towards men. It is a sort of “energy drink”. If you watch the commercials about it you will make more sense of it.
February 3rd, 2009 at 6:36 am
Junior, Let me explain it like this: What a failed re-branding does for the design community is make it look bad to everyone who knows better. Sure I hear crap on the radio all the time, but that is because someone liked EMO, POP or some other BS genre music and said, hey, lets do this again because its popular. Just b/c it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s good. That’s why I don’t listen to the radio. Has music suffered in the past decade or more, ABSOLUTELY! do I say it’s all bad, no. Has design suffered in the past decade, once again, absolutely. When the design world gets inundated with craptastic logos like AT&T and Pepsi, then it makes the design world (the up and comers more so) think that is okay to design like this. That is why it brings us down as a whole. If you distort the perception of good design then you’re left with an illusion of what good design actually is.
The reason for this particular rebranding may very well have been some suites trying to be hip and get more sales. To a large degree, no one cares about the brand, no one says a thing about it’s “suckiness”, and that is why companies like Pepsi will never go under. They will always have business because they are Pepsi. They don’t have to stick to standards or really do anything, their product sells itself.
In your Coke scenario, I’d be a moron to turn down a million for a new logo, that’s just absurd. However, as a designer, I would be worried that I couldn’t “do it justice”. I would also be worried that my design would get ripped to shreds by people like me… that being said, if people like me did the design, it probably wouldn’t be as bad! haha.
Also a good point with who’s fault it is. At the end of the day it makes Pepsi look bad, but the agency is ultimately at fault (or will take it rather). You never hear of the collaboration between two companies but if one is responsible for a particular part of the process and the overall process fails because of the particular part… you can see where this is going… So while the suites at Pepsi may have forced their own ideals on the design, it’s the design agency’s problem when the design fails… passing the buck if you will. But that’s IF that happened.
And though many companies, like ones we have worked for will have the “customer is always right” attitude, a prestigious design or marketing firm is WELL within their rights to tell Pepsi or any other company to “stick it where the sun don’t shine”. Not every design firm or designer is so bad off that they have to bend over to corporate bullspit.
To Lorissa, by this point in the convo, we’re well aware of what the “icons” mean… the debate is still whether or not it was a successful re-branding. That being said, with the reasons above and the basic design principles that get ignored, so far it has not been very successful… at least in the design community which is all we’re really concerned with. Thanks for the comment!
February 16th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
” on rebranding in general, i think coke rebranding is mucch more of an issue. ”
should have read…
on rebranding in general, i think that coke rebranding WOULD BE much more of an issue.
BTW… the designs came from these guys
http://www.arnellgroup.com/
February 16th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
http://www.maguiredesign.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/3161927635_be1aa8af4d_b.jpg
February 27th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
I HATE the pepsi redesign. Every time I see the new bottles in the store they remind me of used motor oil. The colors are too dark and do not look refreshing at all. Soda itself is not visually appealing so the label really needs to give your mind a cue that this is a refreshing beverage. The two liter bottles are so hideous that they chase me out of the soda isle. The first time I saw them out of the corner of my eye, I thought, gee those generic soda labels are ug-a-ly.
The swish doesn’t look like a smiley to me at all. Ridiculous is the only word I have for that. And I certainly don’t think of Obama. Or change.
The main difference between coke and pepsi is that pepsi is sweeter. These bottles don’t convey that message visually AT ALL. This is going to be as big a flop as New Coke, which was too sweet. If you like sweet you drink pepsi. Want a crisper taste, drink Coke.
March 4th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Everybody’s got an opinion. I first saw the new logo on billboards which did not say “pepsi” anywhere on them. Instead the new logo replaced the letter “o” within certain words. My first thought? “Hmmm, looks kind of like the pepsi logo, but have they changed it?” On that level alone the new logo works. All else is merely opinion. Mark my words, in ten or fifteen years when this logo is replaced there will again be much whinging and whining from those who weren’t lucky enough to have been paid to create the new logo.