7 ms·

I will never tire of reminding people of this: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pepsis-nonsensical-logo-redesign-document-1-million-for-this/ https://www.cbsnews.co

I will never tire of reminding people of this: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pepsis-nonsensical-logo-redesign-document-1-million-for-this/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pepsis-nonsensical-logo-redesig...

99052882514569 8y ago
It still amazes me that they're persisting with the fat-belly logo. It looks like a fat dude with his belly hanging out. It's not something that, once seen, can ever be unseen, even years later. Makes me chuckle on the inside, every time, and plays its part in reminding me of dangers of pop over-consumption.
- spking 8y ago
  https://www.utne.com/arts/new-pepsi-logo-is-a-joke https://www.utne.com/arts/new-pepsi-logo-is-a-joke
- hopler 8y ago
  Every abstract logo can be interpreted in many ways if people culture jams it.
- rchaud 8y ago
  I never thought of it as a fat-belly logo, the mockup is pretty funny. I always thought of the logo as similar to a tennis ball. In my country, I remember Pepsi giving away blue/red coloured 3x tennis ball packs with a cases of Pepsi.
Toine 8y ago
Thanks for sharing, didn't know the story. Absolutely astonishing.
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
Apparently that branding company is also active on the Wikipedia page for the logo: > The subliminal advertising involved with the Pepsi Globe logo is also extensive. The different logos and packaging designs are purported to represent the human body, rediscovery of the Vitruvian principles and their publication, Chinese art of placement and spatial arrangement and many other representations that may not seem clear or obvious from just a glance at a Pepsi Bottle. The most famous visual representation is the Pepsi Globe logo’s representation of The Earth. The swirling horizontal stripe running through the center of the globe is claimed to provide a visual representation of the earth’s constant movement around its own axis and around the sun. The stripe also represents a naturally occurring electric generator in fluid motion generating and sustaining the magnetic field of the Earth. This marketing has resulted in an extremely recognizable logo and an aid to a profitable venture.
- naravara 8y ago
  This sounds like someone just cribbed off their syllabus from design school to write up a brief.
lqet 8y ago
The PDF linked in the article [0] is pure gold. > C. The investment in our DNA leads to breakthrough innovation and allows us to move out of the traditional linear system and into the future > BREATHTAKING is a strategy based on the evolution of 5000+ years of shared ideas in design philosophy creating an authentic Constitution of Design. > B. Magnetic Fields: Magnetic fields exert forces on inner and outer surfaces of the Earth. > B. Pepsi Energy Fields: Symmetrical energy fields are in balance. > C. Magnetic Dynamics: Magnetic field are impacted by sun radiation and wind motion. > C. The Pepsi Globe Dynamics: Emotive forces shape the gestalt of the brand identity. Also, take a look at the deconstruction of the old Pepsi logos into arbitrary ellipses ("Perimeter Oscillations") on pages 8ff. It gets increasingly surreal ("Light Path with Gravitational Pull" vs "Gravitational Pull of Pepsi", "Relativity of Space and Time" vs "Pepsi Proposition / Pepsi Aisle", difference between a "Pepsi Galaxy" and a "Pepsi Universe", ...) on the last pages. Dimensionalize exponentially. [0] https://jimedwardsnrx.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pepsi_gravitational_field.pdf https://jimedwardsnrx.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pepsi_grav...
- ubertakter 8y ago
  I just skimmed through the PDF (not that it has much content). I can't believe someone paid for that. Clearly I'm in the wrong business.
  - gridlockd 8y ago
    Make no mistake, it's a lot of work to get to the point where you get to be the one to charge Pepsi a million dollars for a logo.
  - megablast 8y ago
    Creating the bullshit in the PDF is the easy bit, getting someone to pay for it is the hard bit.
- cocochanel 8y ago
  This PDF is hilarious. How can anyone get away with so much bullshit is beyond me.
granshaw 8y ago
I can imagine the thinking on Pepsi's procurement end after all said and done: "Oh yeah, looks like a modern version of our old logo - good! Seems like there's some golden-ratio-ey stuff behind it too which will have subliminal effects - bonus! Price is abit steep but only exceeds our budget by 10% - don't wanna cheap out either, so let's take it!"
- VectorLock 8y ago
  Seems like money well spent in the butt covering department. If their new logo flopped and someone in charge said "I paid some designer $1000 to draw up this new logo" he'd be out of a job and blackballed from the industry. If he says "we spent a million dollars building this logo and had a study done to back it up!" then who can blame him we never saw this coming.
- bsanr2 8y ago
  That's almost certainly what's happening. The pricing of logo design and branding is about how much it's worth to the client and how much risk the designer is taking on [0]. This design firm put its name on a logo for an international corporation worth billions of dollars and people made fun of it for looking like a fat dude; that's a major embarrassment whose potentiality was probably considered in the pricing. The same people chuckling at how nonsensical the design document is supposed to be (and it really isn't) are probably the same people who could talk your ear off about the esoteric particulars of a given programming language or management strategy, which are also, to some degree, subjective BS couched in jargon and seeming non sequiturs. 0 - https://youtu.be/RKXZ7t_RiOE https://youtu.be/RKXZ7t_RiOE
jbduler 8y ago
Thank you @andybak, you made my day. Truly admirable document! This is the highest concentration of BS I have ever seen. I have to check who was the VP Marketing and CEO of Pepsi were at the time. They deserve a place in history for having bought that pipedream.
pndy 8y ago
I was literally stunned how MS Office team was announcing icon redesign for their suite and how some part of the community was mindlessly applauding this breathtaking change as improvement in their lives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YplAU5myNP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YplAU5myNP4 Sure, it's something that looks new and good - minding how current icons are having a rather simple style to put it mildly, but that's not a technological advancement like introducing Ribbon interface in Office 2007. And sadly, that's how MS, Apple and others are trying to portray all these barely significant UI changes - as features. Don't get me wrong, good looking UI is important but I'd be happy if cosmetic changes would remain cosmetic changes and be treated as such. I can appreciate visual improvements and work by myself and I don't need, want to be instructed by marketing teams to feel "enthusiastic" about such changes.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  Visio and Access: Kicked to the curb.
- ZebZ 8y ago
  That icon video was nothing. They, literally, went full-on action movie for Office 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUawhjxLS2I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUawhjxLS2I
  - pndy 8y ago
    Oh my.
  - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    Speechless.
- GuB-42 8y ago
  Incidentally, that video is very nice for showing off global illumination in 3D rendering.
itronitron 8y ago
Pepsi is a global brand, $1M is on the low end for a redesign of their primary logo.
- ummonk 8y ago
  The amount of money is fine; the quality of services rendered for that money is a joke.
  - barbecue_sauce 8y ago
    I dunno. Not only did they get a logo, they got a pretty great historical document.
magicalhippo 8y ago
Someone took the Post-modern Essay Generator[1] to a whole new level it seems... http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/ http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
sizzle 8y ago
If any of you enjoy brand critics tearing apart corporate brand and identity redesigns, check out Brand New, the reader comments section is gold: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/ https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/
wnevets 8y ago
This always comes to my mind when I have to speak to someone in marketing.
- barbecue_sauce 8y ago
  Marketing as a discipline is mostly about numbers (reach, sales, etc.). Ad buys and campaigns. This... this is the work of "Creative Professionals".
Balgair 8y ago
Oh man, it reads just like timecube: http://timecube.2enp.com/ http://timecube.2enp.com/ Per the last 'update' of Gene's: "In 1884, meridian time personnel met in Washington to change Earth time. First words said was that only 1 day could be used on Earth to not change the 1 day marshmallow. So they applied the 1 day and ignored the other 3 days. The marshmallow time was wrong then and it proved wrong today. This a major lie has so much boring feed from it's wrong. No man on Earth has no belly-button, it proves every believer on Earth a liar." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMZdNyRIATo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMZdNyRIATo
barbecue_sauce 8y ago
http://khole.net/ http://khole.net/
westmeal 8y ago
I immediately CTRL+F'd pepsi to look for this.
rramadass 8y ago
What in the world? This can't be real! And just a couple of days ago there was a paper and discussion on "Bullshitters" on HN.

99052882514569 8y ago

It still amazes me that they're persisting with the fat-belly logo. It looks like a fat dude with his belly hanging out. It's not something that, once seen, can ever be unseen, even years later. Makes me chuckle on the inside, every time, and plays its part in reminding me of dangers of pop over-consumption.

spking 8y ago
https://www.utne.com/arts/new-pepsi-logo-is-a-joke https://www.utne.com/arts/new-pepsi-logo-is-a-joke
hopler 8y ago
Every abstract logo can be interpreted in many ways if people culture jams it.
rchaud 8y ago
I never thought of it as a fat-belly logo, the mockup is pretty funny. I always thought of the logo as similar to a tennis ball. In my country, I remember Pepsi giving away blue/red coloured 3x tennis ball packs with a cases of Pepsi.

Toine 8y ago

Thanks for sharing, didn't know the story. Absolutely astonishing.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

Apparently that branding company is also active on the Wikipedia page for the logo: > The subliminal advertising involved with the Pepsi Globe logo is also extensive. The different logos and packaging designs are purported to represent the human body, rediscovery of the Vitruvian principles and their publication, Chinese art of placement and spatial arrangement and many other representations that may not seem clear or obvious from just a glance at a Pepsi Bottle. The most famous visual representation is the Pepsi Globe logo’s representation of The Earth. The swirling horizontal stripe running through the center of the globe is claimed to provide a visual representation of the earth’s constant movement around its own axis and around the sun. The stripe also represents a naturally occurring electric generator in fluid motion generating and sustaining the magnetic field of the Earth. This marketing has resulted in an extremely recognizable logo and an aid to a profitable venture.

naravara 8y ago
This sounds like someone just cribbed off their syllabus from design school to write up a brief.

lqet 8y ago

The PDF linked in the article [0] is pure gold. > C. The investment in our DNA leads to breakthrough innovation and allows us to move out of the traditional linear system and into the future > BREATHTAKING is a strategy based on the evolution of 5000+ years of shared ideas in design philosophy creating an authentic Constitution of Design. > B. Magnetic Fields: Magnetic fields exert forces on inner and outer surfaces of the Earth. > B. Pepsi Energy Fields: Symmetrical energy fields are in balance. > C. Magnetic Dynamics: Magnetic field are impacted by sun radiation and wind motion. > C. The Pepsi Globe Dynamics: Emotive forces shape the gestalt of the brand identity. Also, take a look at the deconstruction of the old Pepsi logos into arbitrary ellipses ("Perimeter Oscillations") on pages 8ff. It gets increasingly surreal ("Light Path with Gravitational Pull" vs "Gravitational Pull of Pepsi", "Relativity of Space and Time" vs "Pepsi Proposition / Pepsi Aisle", difference between a "Pepsi Galaxy" and a "Pepsi Universe", ...) on the last pages. Dimensionalize exponentially. [0] https://jimedwardsnrx.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pepsi_gravitational_field.pdf https://jimedwardsnrx.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pepsi_grav...

ubertakter 8y ago
I just skimmed through the PDF (not that it has much content). I can't believe someone paid for that. Clearly I'm in the wrong business.
- gridlockd 8y ago
  Make no mistake, it's a lot of work to get to the point where you get to be the one to charge Pepsi a million dollars for a logo.
- megablast 8y ago
  Creating the bullshit in the PDF is the easy bit, getting someone to pay for it is the hard bit.
cocochanel 8y ago
This PDF is hilarious. How can anyone get away with so much bullshit is beyond me.

granshaw 8y ago

I can imagine the thinking on Pepsi's procurement end after all said and done: "Oh yeah, looks like a modern version of our old logo - good! Seems like there's some golden-ratio-ey stuff behind it too which will have subliminal effects - bonus! Price is abit steep but only exceeds our budget by 10% - don't wanna cheap out either, so let's take it!"

VectorLock 8y ago
Seems like money well spent in the butt covering department. If their new logo flopped and someone in charge said "I paid some designer $1000 to draw up this new logo" he'd be out of a job and blackballed from the industry. If he says "we spent a million dollars building this logo and had a study done to back it up!" then who can blame him we never saw this coming.
bsanr2 8y ago
That's almost certainly what's happening. The pricing of logo design and branding is about how much it's worth to the client and how much risk the designer is taking on [0]. This design firm put its name on a logo for an international corporation worth billions of dollars and people made fun of it for looking like a fat dude; that's a major embarrassment whose potentiality was probably considered in the pricing. The same people chuckling at how nonsensical the design document is supposed to be (and it really isn't) are probably the same people who could talk your ear off about the esoteric particulars of a given programming language or management strategy, which are also, to some degree, subjective BS couched in jargon and seeming non sequiturs. 0 - https://youtu.be/RKXZ7t_RiOE https://youtu.be/RKXZ7t_RiOE

jbduler 8y ago

Thank you @andybak, you made my day. Truly admirable document! This is the highest concentration of BS I have ever seen. I have to check who was the VP Marketing and CEO of Pepsi were at the time. They deserve a place in history for having bought that pipedream.

pndy 8y ago

I was literally stunned how MS Office team was announcing icon redesign for their suite and how some part of the community was mindlessly applauding this breathtaking change as improvement in their lives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YplAU5myNP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YplAU5myNP4 Sure, it's something that looks new and good - minding how current icons are having a rather simple style to put it mildly, but that's not a technological advancement like introducing Ribbon interface in Office 2007. And sadly, that's how MS, Apple and others are trying to portray all these barely significant UI changes - as features. Don't get me wrong, good looking UI is important but I'd be happy if cosmetic changes would remain cosmetic changes and be treated as such. I can appreciate visual improvements and work by myself and I don't need, want to be instructed by marketing teams to feel "enthusiastic" about such changes.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Visio and Access: Kicked to the curb.
ZebZ 8y ago
That icon video was nothing. They, literally, went full-on action movie for Office 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUawhjxLS2I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUawhjxLS2I
- pndy 8y ago
  Oh my.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  Speechless.
GuB-42 8y ago
Incidentally, that video is very nice for showing off global illumination in 3D rendering.

itronitron 8y ago

Pepsi is a global brand, $1M is on the low end for a redesign of their primary logo.

ummonk 8y ago
The amount of money is fine; the quality of services rendered for that money is a joke.
- barbecue_sauce 8y ago
  I dunno. Not only did they get a logo, they got a pretty great historical document.

magicalhippo 8y ago

Someone took the Post-modern Essay Generator[1] to a whole new level it seems... http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/ http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

sizzle 8y ago

If any of you enjoy brand critics tearing apart corporate brand and identity redesigns, check out Brand New, the reader comments section is gold: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/ https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/

wnevets 8y ago

This always comes to my mind when I have to speak to someone in marketing.

barbecue_sauce 8y ago
Marketing as a discipline is mostly about numbers (reach, sales, etc.). Ad buys and campaigns. This... this is the work of "Creative Professionals".

Balgair 8y ago

Oh man, it reads just like timecube: http://timecube.2enp.com/ http://timecube.2enp.com/ Per the last 'update' of Gene's: "In 1884, meridian time personnel met in Washington to change Earth time. First words said was that only 1 day could be used on Earth to not change the 1 day marshmallow. So they applied the 1 day and ignored the other 3 days. The marshmallow time was wrong then and it proved wrong today. This a major lie has so much boring feed from it's wrong. No man on Earth has no belly-button, it proves every believer on Earth a liar." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMZdNyRIATo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMZdNyRIATo

barbecue_sauce 8y ago

http://khole.net/ http://khole.net/

westmeal 8y ago

I immediately CTRL+F'd pepsi to look for this.

rramadass 8y ago

What in the world? This can't be real! And just a couple of days ago there was a paper and discussion on "Bullshitters" on HN.