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As someone who works in UX, I admire all the work the Google UX team puts into Material: tons of documentation, UI kits, theme generation tools, a lot of thinki
by diegof79 1y ago
As someone who works in UX, I admire all the work the Google UX team puts into Material: tons of documentation, UI kits, theme generation tools, a lot of thinking on systematizing the color combinations, etc.
However, this article has a lot of "Pepsi Logo" vibes (https://www.scribd.com/document/541500744/Pepsi-Arnell-021109 https://www.scribd.com/document/541500744/Pepsi-Arnell-02110...). I never confirmed if this was a hoax, but it was made into many news websites at the time.
Many design justifications they put on the page don't make much sense: yes, a big send button increases the metric of people finding the button, but it also takes space from the screen, and your daily phone UI is not a kiosk. "New users" become "experienced users", so the big button quickly becomes annoying. Even the M3 documentation site is terrible on mobile: the tab switch at the headers of some docs is so big that just two tabs don't fit into the screen.
By contrast, Apple, which is often praised for its product aesthetics, never makes marketing content like this about its design language. It may present creating emojis as a huge feature or inflate some of its claims a bit, but in general, they let the product do the talking.
- Lammy 1y ago> However, this article has a lot of "Pepsi Logo" vibes So wildly successful that we're all still talking about it even though they don't even use that logo any more?
- superb_dev 1y agoI'm not sure we're talking about it because it was successful, I think we're talking about it because the design document for it was insane: https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell-021109.pdf https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...
- neilv 1y agoWhich was a lot of work, to achieve the apt: https://www.utne.com/arts/new-pepsi-logo-is-a-joke/ https://www.utne.com/arts/new-pepsi-logo-is-a-joke/
- Lammy 1y agoWhat is the point of branding but to be remembered? It worked!
- CharlesW 1y agolol no it did not https://www.voronoiapp.com/markets/Dr-Pepper-Ties-Pepsi-as-Americas-No-2-Soda--1484 https://www.voronoiapp.com/markets/Dr-Pepper-Ties-Pepsi-as-A...
- Lammy 1y agoI'm not talking about the company's effectiveness in selling sugar-water with the branding attached; I'm talking about the branding's effectiveness at being remembered. A person wants to criticize some unrelated UI design and the very first thing that comes to their mind is “lol this reminds me of The Gravitational Pull of Pepsi!!”. It will live forever.
- jonahx 1y agoYou're assuming the goal of the marketing is merely "to be remembered". But it's not. It's to be remembered in some positive way, or at least some way that still increases sales. This campaign will live forever as a laughing stock. That wasn't its intention.
- fn-mote 1y agoUnderstood. But also “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Scare quotes because obviously there is, but I don’t think this example crosses the line.
- zamadatix 1y agoEven if one takes it as being on that side of the fence, which I'm not sure I actually buy myself, I'm also still not convinced getting some a niche of folks aware of marketing and brand design documents to have such an association form would deserved to be called wildly successful. Usually you want a significant portion of the population to have a common association with a brand as large as Pepsi, not a small portion to have a rare association.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- codethief 1y agoOh wow. To everyone who, like me, hadn't seen the document before: You might wanna sit down before this one.
- floam 1y agoPEPSI LOGO: four-dimensional vortex spinning infinite sugar into your brain, colors aligned with cosmic harmony, corporations bending space-time for brand immortality. RED AND BLUE: binary opposition, day-night duality, eternal beverage cycle feeding consciousness illusion. MARKETING TEAMS: trapped in cubic time distortion, scripting consumer reality inside spherical deception—only Pepsi knows the quadrants.
- wpm 1y agoBeing infamous is not the same thing as being successful.
- freeone3000 1y agoBut it has a 30% increase in the key attribute of “rebelliousness”!
- kevincox 1y agoReeks of "we asked about 1000 attributes and took our favourite ones that happened to go up" despite those increases not being statistically significant.
- DonHopkins 1y agoWho else feels this product is "stupid"? Alan? Lisa? Josh? Yana? Katy? And did it "piss off" anyone else? Alan? Lisa? Josh? Yana? Katy? And who else felt this product is "messed up"? Alan? Lisa? Josh? Yana? Katy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVq1wgIN62E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVq1wgIN62E
- thewebguyd 1y ago> By contrast, Apple, which is often praised for its product aesthetics, never makes marketing content like this about its design language. It may present creating emojis as a huge feature or inflate some of its claims a bit, but in general, they let the product do the talking. On top of that, when Apple makes a change or does a redesign, it's usually not overly disruptive (new macOS settings aside). The core functionality and layouts remain more or less the same, but it's just a new coat of paint. I still use my Mac the same way today, with the same keyboard shortcuts and workflow I did in 2006. Meanwhile, Windows has gone through no less than 5 total UI disruptions since then.
- formerly_proven 1y ago> it's usually not overly disruptive (new macOS settings aside). The core functionality and layouts remain more or less the same ios 18 photos app?
- thewebguyd 1y agoTrue, even Apple has been slipping lately too, particularly with apps. At least the core OS hasn't gone through a reinvention yet.
- dmix 1y agoSimilar to Settings app I think the Photos app was because they rewrote it in Swift.
- LoganDark 1y agoI hope the rewrite will eventually allow me to tell it to stop pausing sync for "optimizing system performance". Every time I find that my photos have not uploaded despite the phone being locked on the charger for hours it is because of Optimizing System Performance. What a joke.
- indemnity 1y agoYep. One of my top annoyances. I don’t pay for top tier internet to wait hours for ten goddamn photos I just took to upload to the cloud so my Mac Photos library can see it.
- overfeed 1y ago> By contrast, Apple, which is often praised for its product aesthetics, never makes marketing content like this about its design language I clearly remember the Jony-Ive-hagiography era, which I assume was organized by Apple PR/marketing. Perhaps it's more accurate to say Apple doesn't do this anymore.
- jinushaun 1y agoPepsi, Tropicana, Windows Phone, etc. It’s designers and UX researchers in a bubble.