Ha! Got you didn't I?
Coke now has a droplet logo for The Coca Cola Company, along with the tagline, "Make every drop count." This is apparently in a move to differentiate Coke, the soft-drink, from Coke the company which "now provides nearly 400 products in over 200 countries."
I first read it at Be A Design Group.
Well, it's almost as bad as the New Coke. Seems like most people (currently 3) don't like it.
I always say, be careful what you ask for.
"...But in themselves I think are a success, and very flexible for use in different graphic situations. "
So flexible that they can be used and confused by anyone with a liquid product. This is truly clip-art design of the worst kind.
It was done much better by Calgon years ago in their water softener packaging.
ChrisL
>clip-art design of the worst kind
Ok the more I look at it the worse it looks with the script. But a lot of the problem is the script itself with both the logo with two baselines--which looks great on its own--but then the 'The' and 'Company' aligning with only 'Cola' making the thing unbalanced. And then the sans at the bottom plus the logo. It is just over over-done and busy.
But it other contexts I don't see the drops as bad. 'The obvious is better than the obvious avoidance of the obvious.' Of course it is much better if it looks fresh but natural and logical and simple. But I don't think the idea of multi-colored drops is so bad, just the execution with the logo.
I think the drip symbol would suite a 'water company' better.
http://images.google.com/images?q=water+logo&btnG=Search&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=
> ‘The obvious is better than the obvious avoidance of the obvious.’
Maybe true, but nothing should have to be so obvious.
To me this logo is particularly bad because of it's lack of subtlety. To paraphrase pica_pusher, it hits you over the head with a number of things:
1. That the Coke company is not Coke the drink (look how different we are!)
2. That the Coke company is still strongly tied to Coke the drink (see! we're keeping the script!)
3. That the Coke company makes many many different types of drinks (can we have about 400 droplets? No? How about five?)
> But I don’t think the idea of multi-colored drops is so bad, just the execution with the logo.
I think it's a lame idea made worse by insensitive execution.
I don't know why but I can hear the client asking for all sorts of things when I look at the logo.
Coca-Cola are a water company
Tim
"This is truly clip-art design of the worst kind".
I definitely agree. Even without understanding the strategic reasons for this rebrand/campaign/whatever it is, the message 'in everything we do, we give up drops of ourselves' is trite at best, and downright unappetizing at worst. There's something vaguely unappealing about linking a soft drink with the bodily fluids of wonderfully diverse ethnic groups enjoying themselves on a beach.
The solid drops - quite apart from being badly drawn and composed - do nothing to suggest refreshment and the thirst quenching properties that you come to expect from fizzy pop. I don't think I'll be able to buy a Coke now without wondering exactly how much blood, sweat and tears (and worse) has gone into it.
I agree, I immediately thought "blood drive".
If people can refer to a color as (brand name)-color then DON'T MESS WITH THE COLOR. I do like bright colors - Kinko's/Fed-Ex is beautiful, BP is great, but you have to know what you're doing. This just comes off patchy and the primary colors make it look childish.
... This is sort of a shame, in my eyes it really doesn't work and I agree this is work of a marketeer.
I read an articel about how the Coca Cola Company is introducing a new type of bottle and bottlesystem (atleast here in holland) and I was verry impressed by it and how they take the lead in that market.
But when I see this new absurd addition to the oh so cool typographic logo I wonder what went wrong here, okey there is a story behind it, but it comes off very very cheap.
I give it a year or two and then it has died a lonely and silent death... I hope
I agree that it won't last that long, as this look is way too trendy and won't last long enough to establish itself as strong mark. Check out the bahamas mess of rainbow colorful shapes http://www.bahamas.com/bahamas/index.aspx, it kinda works for them, but for coke?.
I've always *loved* the Bahamas logo. I can only wonder how much it costs to run, though. I heard that those are all spot colors. But that could have been just a rumor.
But regarding the new Coke logo: I hope it stays in the temp webpage that it's at right now, and then gets canned. They have developed untold-of amounts of equity because of their amazing branding. The last thing I could think they'd want to do is a re-creation of the "New Coke" fiasco they did.
However, this could be a re-situating themselves at a corporate level which may never touch their branding strategy on a end-user level.
We'll just have to wait and see.
A company synonymous with it's flagship product is a tough branding job. I don't envy the people that had to do this work because it's like messing with the cave paintings at Lascaux, you just don't do it.
Coca Cola the company vs. Coca Cola the drink... it's the same problem Word Perfect had, and Saturn when they first got started.
PS -- Do we need a demerit system for people who make puns in these forums. There are more puns in here than there are ideas. =P
Finally.
Thank you Joe.
I worked on the Make Every Drop Count campaign. Didn't do the logo, but worked on the project.
This is a first for The Coca-Cola Company. One for the history books.
~
Theodore Rosendorf
http://rosendorf.us
pica pusher - I apologize for the late reply. Can this site send out notifications?
Anyway, I am bound by NDAs, though I'm not sure what is and what isn't public knowledge at this point. I know that Coke isn't commenting to the media and the agencies that did the work aren't allowed to comment. The media's asking - no one's talking.
I can say that the current verison of the logo is much better than what it initially was when work the on campaign begun. It was tightened up a bit. You may be interested to know who did and reworked the logo. I'll find out if I can say.
Sorry to be so cryptic...
Can someone who speaks Arabic confirm whether that Coke logo looks totally amateurish? The line quality reminds me uncomfortably of drawing with a mouse and Illustrator's brush tool, not to mention the two arrowheads on the bottommost character...
Anyway Theodore: Sorry to hear that it's all hushed up. I'm still interested in the motivations behind this project.
Can you guys believe I'm still trying to get a definitive answer? I'm sure you guys will find out before I can see if I can talk. Ugh...
~
Theodore Rosendorf
http://rosendorf.us
> it’s like messing with the cave paintings at Lascaux
Easy easy, generationext.
When it comes to Coke and rock painting, here's what might come to
mind instead: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2263917.stm
> Can someone who speaks Arabic confirm
> whether that Coke logo looks totally amateurish?
Actually it looks fine (although the connections of the "waw"s, the looped
middle letters, to the following letters is "incorrect"). Not great, but fine.
And it's nicely not Latinized. Although the Arabic 7-Up logo whips it bad.
BTW, pull-tabs are a man's tabs. They provide for a unique and... handy test of one's manual dexterity and power that the pansy swivel/push-tab does not: try opening a pull-tab can with one hand without resting the can on anything. And what to do with the tab? A man's man removes it completely and dumps it in through the hole, before starting to drink the beverage of course. And don't forget, all with one motion, with the can in the air the whole time. Shoo abadaï.
hhp
Captured from commoncrawl.org on 28 Apr 2015. original URL
