Pepsi Design Strategy (2008) | Hacker News Reader

Pepsi Design Strategy (2008)

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63 pointsreimertz31 comments

I've always loved this absurd document. I think it must have been made after the new logo was designed, as a way to back-annotate a fake history of how it was developed.

Looking at the new Pepsi logo, this is all I can see: http://blowatlife.blogspot.com/2009/02/pepsi-logo-response.h...

Based on the last two pages of the document which seem to outline a unified theory of the universe centered around Pepsi, I would tend assume the same.

Actually, stands to reason, the different wavelengths of the swirls are explained by the Doppler-shift.

Actually, Pepsi spent millions on this. It's completely valid...and ludicrous.

The design firm could easily have made this presentation as a way to justify a design they just thought "looked better and more fresh"

That's exactly what they did.

The real process was drinking whiskey and smoking pot (ala Mad Men). Then came the search for a board room palatable process to reach the same design.

Parallel construction.

Oh boy did the Da Vinci Vitruvian Man reference made me cringe

I got all the way to the twaddle about general relativity.

You always suspect that this kind of claptrap is being sold to F500 companies, but it doesn't make it any less shocking to actually see how ridiculous it is.

i wish there was a word like schadenfreude that captured that sublime feeling of seeing someone miss the satire in something and pile contempt on it at the same time.

It's unclear whether this is a hoax or not. Anrell -- Pepsi's ad agency at the time -- refused comment. Certainly parts of the document are straight (even if they're recreated). The Pepsi circle does echo a smile, and when the off-kilter smile logo was unveiled, it was unveiled with each product getting it's own customized logo. See the various 2008 - 2010 product pages on http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Pepsi

This level of BS has been seen before, lest Lucent Technologies's old red ring logo, and the story that came with its unveiling. http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/08/10/lucent_logo_captures...

I am not honestly not sure what to think.

The document is clearly a joke. There is no way in hell someone produced this with a straight face, and that people then accepted it. But either the whole internet is in on the joke, or the articles about it really support your version: That it is not sure whether that's a joke. That the world this stems from is so absurd that it just might be the real thing.

Care to cite any hard evidence that the document was a hoax? Certainly, some pages of the document are vaguely legitimate explorations in design history, whereas others are ludicrous to the point of satire.

Are you being mean to the person you're talking to? If so, please don't do that here.

Given Poe's law, how can you be sure the person missing the satire isn't you?

Yes, that is indeed what I feel when I read comments such as yours.

Do you mean cringe, Or is that missing the sarcastic joy?

I read this thing and it really becomes clear how the private equity firm 3G is able to buy these old consumer products companies like Budweiser and Heinz and fire half the company and cut all sorts of other expenses and have it not adversely affect the sales. The amount of waste and overspending at these companies on autopilot that generate a lot of cash flow anyway must be astonishing.

Design has a high degree of subjectivity so we (designers) can't always have great ideas.

When great ideas don't appear we must be prepared to be called at our work once we are "bluffing". The best strategy to "win the hand" is by making a valid logical argument. We know who is calling our bluff (logical minds) so we adapt to the "opponent". "Folding" is not an option, our management will never allow that.

Normally good design doesn't need a valid argument and speaks by itself. But unfortunately we can't be sure that we will achieve it until the deadline.

Your comment reads like an argument for leaders to trust instinct more than reason.

Take it as a practical anecdote from somebody that has been on the grind of large scale architectural design concepts.

Honest question, what's the connection with Mozilla.org, eg how is it that Mozilla is serving this up from their domain?

Aww c'mon man look at the URL - it's not that hard to figure out! ;P It's linked from the blog of a former principal designer @faaborg - now working on Google's VR stuff.

There is a 2009 article where he talks about the new Firefox icon, Tropicana, and references the infamous Breathtaking document.

https://blog.mozilla.org/faaborg/2009/05/21/new-firefox-icon...

Cheers. I thought there might be an interesting back story.

“Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

In retrospect, it might've been better if he kept on selling sugar water.

"Change the world?! Sugar! We shall create our own universe of caffeinated corn syrup!"

Who knew that the Theory of Everything would involve Pepsi?

Is this supposed to devolve to the absurd as it goes on?

BREATHTAKING!

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