Design wankery
Via BoingBoingGadgets comes the supposed pitch book for the new Pepsi logo. Having worked in design firms, this all looks very familiar…
This 6MB PDF that is purported to be the pitch used by design group Arnell to sell executives at Pepsi on a new logo design is perhaps the most brilliant example of puffed up design faffery I’ve ever seen. I think the final design of the logo family, each slightly modified on each Pepsi product, is weaker than its predecessor, but the bolstering quasi-science used to justify the recalibration of a few bezier curves is art of Timecubeesquemagnificence. [via]
Some choice excerpts:
“1929 Pepsi Geometries: Perimeter Oscillations”, giving me a new favorite term to trot out the next time I’m criticizing the shape of a design.
My favorite bit of their favorite bits:
There is supposedly some equation underpinning the ratio of each of the logo curves, which, well, duh. It’s as if the designer took off his chunky glasses, peered around around the conference table, and stared into each Pepsi executive’s soul. “Gentlemen, we will make these lines…with math.”
I have to say, this may look like it was thrown together out of bullshit and, who knows? It may have been. I can attest that the designers I’ve worked with, particularly the logo designers, have been known to overthink things to a shocking degree. Making something that just looks cool is pretty easy for designers, but making shit up to justify it isn’t all that easy, since most designers are not creative writers. Thus, it’s usually easier to design something with a philosophy behind it that you can stand on. It makes presentations go a lot more smoothly since you’re not just pulling answers out of your ass, plus it’s often the only way to sleep at night given the tremendous fees one gets for designing corporate identities. Finally, as much as it may look like these things are mostly improvised, the guys that make them take their jobs pretty seriously. Often annoyingly so. Go watch Helvetica if you want to see what I mean.
That said, there’s a quote out there by rockstar designer David Carson that I can’t find at the moment, but it goes something like “Sometimes you just want to make the logo you want to make, so you go in there and say ‘I researched the history of your company and noticed your commitment to environmental sustainability and that’s why I made your logo green.’”
Amusingly, when I went to go find the link for the movie Helvetica, whose ugly mug was up there? David Carson! Weird, since he’s the person I least associate with that font.
Leave a Reply