DESIGN FAIL

[spatch]

Hold on to your hats, kids, Pepsi's rebranding!

From http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2008/10/what-is-pepsi-t.html:

Pepsi has announced that they are undergoing a drastic relaunching of their branding and packaging to bring "new life" to their flagship brands. The most dramatic element is a redesign of the Pepsi Globe logo, which for some reason is now supposed to represent a smile.

Uh huh. Okay. Let's take a look at the designs which Pepsi undoubtedly paid lots of money for!


This is the new Pepsi logo in its "Yes We Can" Can. The audacity of pop, indeed.
And the Sierra Mist logo was designed by someone who just learned of this awesome Photoshop thingy that makes stuff blurry! Let's use it! A lot! Are your eyes bleeding yet? Are your fingernails digging hard enough into your palm to draw blood because you know you could've whipped up a better logo with MSPaint and a few bonghits? Tough luck, pal, cause THEY got mad paid and YOU didn't!

To be fair, these are design renderings, so it's perfectly logical if someone went a little crazy with the P-Shop. But something tells me the finished product ain't gonna be too far from this.

But wait! There's more!


Ha ha ha! The smile in Diet Pepsi is THINNER! Skinny people don't smile enough! (Okay, this is almost cute.) But the Mountain (excuse me: Mtn) Dew logo! What the hell, people? This is not a soda logo. This is a logo for a regional ski area from the 70s and 80s (the slanted M is what does it). This would be one of those ski areas with T bars and no chair lift, and there'd be one class trip there every year and you'd have to go along but you couldn't downhill ski so you'd stay back at the lodge feeding the hot drink vending machine quarter after quarter to watch it fill paper cups full of half-mixed hot chocolate and the paper cups for some reason always had a blackjack hand printed on the bottom so when you were done you looked underneath and went OH SNAP 18 GUESS I STAND and this is what passed for entertainment for a full day because there was nothing else to do and can you tell that this happened to me on more than one occasion?

These look like store brand logos. The knock-offs. "Mountain Fizz" and "Dr. Bob" and all that. And these logos should stay with the store brands. Nice try at the "hip", Pepsi. Too bad you failed so hard you could hear it all the way in Kuala Lumpur.

Comments

[ron_newman]

Shouldn't it say "new pepsi" ?

[28bytes.livejournal.com]

I've never forgiven them for getting rid of Teem.

[dskasak.livejournal.com]

Don't forget Pepsi Max's BIG smile, or the Big G.

I like the color scheme of the labels, as well as Pepsi one-upping Coca-Cola in the minimalist redesign department by going modern vs. Coke's retro. However, the Pepsi typeface makes me think of Lee Majors shilling for Diet Pepsi in the early 80s, and MTN DEW looks more like an MTV retread than a 70s ski resort (since the 70s were all about the funky earth tones).

[giantfightbot.livejournal.com]

The vitriol that the Under Consideration people had for this brand is something I haven't seen for a few months.

I did sorta like the Tropicana rebrand, though.

[ron_newman]

what are they doing to Tropicana?

Rebranding Gatorade is another stupid idea.

[giantfightbot.livejournal.com]

Brand New has some screen shots. OK, the orange-shaped cap has to go, but other than that, it's good.

[ron_newman]

Except that at first glance, the brand name now appears to be "100% Orange" rather than Tropicana. Fail.

Also, the packaging of the different varieties (No Pulp, Some Pulp, Lots of Pulp) is no longer very differentiated.

[spatch]

And "No Pulp" has become "Pulp Free".

And you just know that the semantics debate there raged fiercely among management.

[ron_newman]

No mention of Orange Slice. Are they leaving that logo alone?

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

stuff tastes like ass anyway. COKE IS IT

[wring.livejournal.com]

this

[spatch]

/AGREE

[wavilyem.livejournal.com]

Why go through all that trouble when they could have just cut to the chase and use the designs from Back to the Future Part II. After all, 2015 is only about six years from now!

And BTW, where the heck are my flying cars and skateboards???

[saint-buddha.livejournal.com]

Because I am a dork, I will find this totally awesome if they actually do this in 2015.

[wring.livejournal.com]

i want a hover board so bad. didnt know mattel made them! i love how they don't have waiters in the future, just Max Headroom.

[bkdelong.livejournal.com]

And what's with the creepy green arterial innerspace going on with Sierra Mist? Is that supposed to remind me that even the Lemon-Lime has heavy sodium?

[luckimunki.livejournal.com]

Looks like a misty forest to me...

[scout1222.livejournal.com]

Hee, the store brand names kill me. We have a store brand Sprite/Sierra Mist called "ditto" - huh?

[ron_newman]

Supposed to remind you of this?

[scout1222.livejournal.com]

I doubt the soda smells nearly as intoxicating!

[sup3rmark.livejournal.com]

no, no:

[semer.livejournal.com]

That's what I think of EVERY TIME I see the safeway ditto soda >_

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

Yes, these do, indeed, look like bad 70s versions of logos. I want a Tab
Cola (for beautiful people).

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

That's not a smile; that's the evil sneering eye of a cartoon overlord.

[zhym.livejournal.com]

Dude. Capital letters were so last century.

[(Anonymous)]

true. and the logo looks like a fat belly the shirt cant cover anymore...de-designed

[wring.livejournal.com]

i see a vagina in that pepsi logo.

[samethreechords.livejournal.com]

oh okay it wasn't just me (see comment below)

[wring.livejournal.com]

great minds think alike

[invisibelle.livejournal.com]

it's gotta be a nod to their powerful female CEO...

[semer.livejournal.com]

Wow, now if this becomes the actual retail logo, I'm doomed forever. Doomed to giggling.

[zasu.livejournal.com]

well! we SO know what's on YOUR mind all the time anyway ;p

(ps, friend, so i can say that)

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

The really super awesome thing is that the designer also failed Basic Principles of Cartooning. When you reduce the size of the features in a face, the face looks fatter. Consequently I am now imagining the basic logo with a squeaky little comedy voice and the big one with a Funny Fat Guy chortle.

[samethreechords.livejournal.com]

is it just me or does that logo look kinda like a... uh... a georgia o'keefe painting?



okay. vagina. fine. i said it.

[luckimunki.livejournal.com]

You see Georgia O'Keefes in everything.

[luckimunki.livejournal.com]

Hi. Graphic design student here. Can I say something? Don't hit me. I don't think these are as bad as you're making them out to be. They're certainly better than the current label designs. Of course, I'm always a fan of round, thin, sans serif fonts. Overall, it's minimalist and slick, and vertical type makes me happy.

The logo redesign was neat until you pointed out that it was supposed to look like a smile. I thought they were just trying to go for a more asymmetrical look. It doesn't look like a smile to me -- or a vagina for that matter.

Okay, done now.

[argentla.livejournal.com]

The "Mtn DEW" typeface looks early 80s, but nobody in the late 70s would've used vivid green like that. It would've been beige, orange, or taupe.

[tonysalieri.livejournal.com]

I look at this so-hip-it-hurts-by-way-of-Demolition-Man designs and think only one thing:

BrawndoPepsi has what plants crave!

[invisibelle.livejournal.com]

yeah, so uh. heheh.

i'm going out on a limb talking about this since it's not a friendslocked entry, but I work for the ad agency that does all the pepsi brands' websites. none of us like the new logos either.

I think the literal takes on "mountain" and "mist" are awful... I don't know who designed all these, but... I just don't know. I don't get the whole retro-look-as-new-improved-look thinking.

*shakes head* it makes us all sad, too.

[semer.livejournal.com]

Can we stage some sort of public uprising to make it stop? Maybe? Please? Ohgodplease? ;_;

[invisibelle.livejournal.com]

Let me put it this way... the analyst who works directly with Pepsi is the kind of guy who pays very close attention to blogs and online buzz...

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

Now THAT'S a label!

Kuala Lumpur!

[(Anonymous)]

hehe Kuala lumpur is my hometown ...
we aint that far off in the middle of nowhere...

[semer.livejournal.com]

Actually... I think that's a pretty ugly label, if you were serious. :(

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

You're just in the pockets of the High Fructose Corn Syrup people, who are making those awful commercials.

[(Anonymous)]

Hahaha, I definitely laughed the whole way through this post. Word on the photoshop blurry comment. But for some reason...I kind of like it. I don't know, maybe because it's so different and simple. Very audacious indeed.

[aliiyf.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. I kind of liked the Pepsi design on the can, but it lost me on the bottle. I do like how simple and minimalistic the Pespi logos are, but the Sierra Mist and mtn dew are pretty craptastic. I don't like the Pepsi font, either. Bleh.

#34 Ali Factoid [Collect them all!]: I live in the town where Pepsi was invented.

[invisibelle.livejournal.com]

update - the new logos are now live on pepsi.com...

[eeka13.livejournal.com]

This is a logo for a regional ski area from the 70s and 80s (the slanted M is what does it). This would be one of those ski areas with T bars and no chair lift, and there'd be one class trip there every year and you'd have to go along but you couldn't downhill ski so you'd stay back at the lodge feeding the hot drink vending machine quarter after quarter to watch it fill paper cups full of half-mixed hot chocolate and the paper cups for some reason always had a blackjack hand printed on the bottom so when you were done you looked underneath and went OH SNAP 18 GUESS I STAND

OMF *dies laughing*