[filmgirlcw]

I mean, as risky and brand and logo redesigns are, there is often a need to want to modernize or revitalize your logo or mark or packaging. It’s more difficult, the larger/older/more iconic your packaging is. That’s why the best logo and branding and packaging redesigns tend to either be the most iterative or have changed early in a product/brand’s lifecycle before he could be too associated with a company.

The Tropicana redesign was a total failure — but there is a story where you could have had a redesign that left essential elements (the orange with the straw at the center), with a slightly updated/modernized logo or typeface, and it could have been successful.

Successful rebrands and redesigns don’t get the same attention as the failures because they are successful. But there are a number that are fairly radical — Airbnb, I was definitely in the camp that hated their new logo and branding at first, but it has worked. Coca-Cola consistently has some of the best adjustments to its logo and packaging, subtle but powerful (New Coke being the exception that absolutely proves the rule). Apple and Microsoft have both had very good redesigns — Apple has used the same logo shape for decades, but it has changed font and color of the logo. Kroger is a more recent example of an exemplary rebrand.

Going too far, and in this case, making your core packaging impossible for buyers to recognize is absolutely a problem and a disaster — but rebranding or updating branding is often a very good thing for a business, especially when it is subtle enough for the consumer to not notice or to just notice that it now looks more elegant or fresher.

[mark-r]

One of my favorite graphics is this one detailing the evolution of the Pepsi logo vs. the Coca-Cola logo: https://flowingdata.com/2009/08/13/pepsi-and-coca-cola-logo-...

Of course it was over-dramatized for effect, and the truth emerges further down the page. But it's close enough to true that it stops and makes you think.

[lmkg]

One of those brands has endured for over 125 years, is today worth over $18 billion dollars, and is the 36th-most valuable company in the world.

The other is Coca-Cola.

Pepsi gets an absolutely undeserved amount of shit[1]. It's one of the most successful companies in the world. It's impressive on every single metric other than "is Coca-Cola." The fact that they can have that level of success while competing head-to-head with one of the most successful brands of all-time ought to be reason for accolades, not insults.

The takeaway that I choose to get from that graphic is that there are multiple paths to success, and one need not imitate the market-leader's strategy.

[1] Except that one logo document. It absolutely deserved all the shit it got for that one.

[filmgirlcw]

Yes!! I mentioned this meme in another comment because it is also one of my favorites!

Coca-Cola has some of the best branding work of all time. It’s also interesting to see how iconic the branding is even in non-English countries. You can see a Coke logo in any country and know what the product is. It’s just superb.

[throwaway742]

I'm not sure AirBnB is a good example. Their brand is their name. They aren't a product on a shelf. I'm not sure there is a logo terrible enough to make someone close their website and not book a room.

[filmgirlcw]

Well, I think you run the risk of not making the app icon (if there is an app) or logo recognition worse. When Uber changed its logo to the weird map pickup thing from the “U” — it hurt them. That’s not a 1:1, obviously because Uber is much more homescreen reliant than Airbnb is, but that doesn’t mean too can’t have bad internet logo redesigns. To say nothing of terrible website redesigns, which have killed companies before (Digg v4).

Again, I’ve come around on the Airbnb one personally. I think it works now.

[throwaway742]

Point taken. I forget people use apps sometimes. I do everything through the browser.