Paul Rand and Steve Jobs (2011)

Yeah. I remember reading that one. I can see it is bad, but honestly I don't follow what Rand is saying. I always thought the Next logo kinda looked bad! But that may be because I don't have the aesthetic sense.

what...the hell am I reading. The last two pages especially -- "Dimensionalize exponentially?" Not to mention all the golden ratio BS. I'm struggling and failing to imagine a scenario in which this document could be presented with a straight face.

so they did redesign the logo recently. I didn't even notice. Though i'm not a significant drinker of *cola.

Anyway, just went to the fridge - yep, Pepsi cans of the new design there - the saturated solid blue color of the Pepsi cans (with lesser saturated colors of the logo itself) looks less sophisticated, more proletarian vs. Coca cans on the same shelf. Well, may be i'm already on the other side of the generation gap, and ultimately it depends on what new generation would choose.

> gravitational pull of Pepsi

Is this an actual design document or just satire?

That's not a real thing, right? I missed this joke?

Is marketing really that utterly laughable?

Reading that document a few years ago lead to an epiphany for me in realizing that there may actually be value in some of the BSing you're forced to do in school. I think human nature leads people to seek deeper meaning and explanations, and the BS assignments force you to create convincing rationalizations that satiate that need. This is particularly true when you're trying to justify spending a lot of money on more abstract things like, say, a logo redesign. From what I remember, Pepsi paid the firm that put together that presentation about a million dollars for that logo. Granted, I think it's a good logo and certainly an improvement on the old, but I don't think that the artist(s) actually looked to Da Vinci's Mona Lisa or the expanding rate of the universe for influence. That's just the BS rationalization that was added later to help them close the deal.

And the end result is http://www.hookedonads.com/pepsi-logo-is-actually-a-fat-guys...

Less of a risk when you are as established as he was by 1986. I think it was safe to assume that Steve Jobs would appreciate and digest the format. A standard 3 concepts on poster board presentation would have been much more risky, given the audience.

And for a book by Paul Rand, I would recommend A Designer's Art if you can find it.

http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Rand-A-Designer%60s-Art/dp/030008...

If you drop money on a brand from a real design firm, you get this same booklet. It's common practice. I've had to both design brands and the booklet's we gave to clients, as recently as a year ago. Of course a year of R&D, Market/Competitor Research and Design Studies cost our client $150,000.

Usually budget logo design; from freelancers etc, result in you getting an email with x number of Options and little to no reasoning.

While I am no fan of this particular logo as a matter of personal preference, the "NeXT" character-casing is better than just "Next" or "next" since it creates identity.

Identity creates recognition and unlike "Pepsi" which is a unique word, "Next" is a fairly common word and without some sort of identity it would go easily unnoticed in regular writing.

On a related note, I always found that iPhone, iPad, iPod, i* is one of the best product naming schemes I have come across, not just because of the strong identity but also because of it's extensibility to new product lines.

Crazy to think Steve Jobs spent 12 years of his life at NeXT.