New Pepsi logo and font: What went wrong

If you confuse the the new Pepsi logo and packaging with a store brand, it's understandable.

It is an ambitious effort to re-brand a line of products such as this, but perhaps PepsiCo over-thought the effort. Nike has brilliantly made its symbol synonymous with its corporate name, but I don't foresee this happening with Pepsi. The company should revisit the brand and start with the typography, and hope that the consumer smiles when they say "Pepsi," instead of trying to own the smile and hoping that the consumer thinks of Pepsi when they smile.

The new Pepsi brand has the look of and creates the perception of a store brand, and here's why:

The visual symbol: The familiar red and blue circle has been replaced by a mark that seems inspired by animé or aerospace. Under Consideration compares them side-by-side, with quotes from Ad Age and BVNet:

"The brand's blue and red globe trademark will become a series of "smiles," with the central white band arcing at different angles depending on the product."

While the intent may have been sincere, it's poorly executed (what consumer is going to notice that each brand has a different angle?) Perhaps each bottle will soon include a legend to let the consumer know what the smile means. Perhaps the last three years of election cycle rubbed off on the brand as well, with its similarity to the Obama campaign logo.

The typography: The Pepsi logo, set in lower case, alludes to vintage typography (disco anyone?) while trying to be modern. Stem and stroke weights differ, and joins bloat. This lettering was possible accomplished with a Rapid-o-graph pen, straight edge and circle template. It reflects years of amateur-looking type design in the packaging and advertising industry, and reminds me of type downloaded from a free font site.

The color palette: Eeeeew. It's not friendly, it makes me wonder if I'd actually enjoying drinking what's in the bottle. It's depressing. The entire dark palette of colors on the packaging seems to infer that PepsiCo is taking itself much too seriously.

The packaging: some of the comments at Under Consideration suggest that the new small bottles have similarities to, well, other objects. While the design of two-liter bottles (show here) don't change much, the wrapper combines all of the shortcomings of symbol, color and typography into a tired-looking design.

Who's thirsty? ;-)

Receding hairlines and typographic mistakes

So, I am not the only one. Christopher Phin joins the typographic soirée just a few weeks ago with this short but sweet top-ten list of common typographic errors.

You may not agree that the decimal point in prices is incorrect — (interpunct anyone?) this may be an UK convention that we threw into the bay with the tea — but his list is worth a quick read and should be committed to memory.

Note: in case you didn't notice, Phin is from the UK. They have other typographic practices that many in the US find unusual (such as omitting periods from abbreviations such as Dr and Mr), but that's OK. It's not wrong, just different.

The death of the apostrophe

The Apostrophic Menace

Did you see the original Stars Wars? Did you see the wrong apostrophe in the opening text that receded, in glorious faux perspective, into the distance? It was subtle, and if you did, you can quit reading and go order some type from Altered Ego Fonts. Oh, everything was spelled correctly (I’m certain they proofed that at least) but they became lazy in the punctuation. Need more clues? Think hard, you had to have seen it. Most people are so used to seeing them they overlook them.

What, do you ask, is the “wrong apostrophe?” It’s like the wrong trousers, such as what Wallace was stuck with when he rented a room to a penguin. Missed that one too? Well, go to the video store tonight, and pay attention here now (especially PC users — it’s easier to do this correctly on a Mac). It’s what appears when you type the apostrophe key next to the return key on your keyboard. You weren’t expecting a curly apostrophe (or typographer’s apostrophe) to come out automatically were you? If you’re not careful, or your preferences aren’t set correctly in your layout / drawing/ word processing program of choice, you will see the ASCII apostrophe appear on your screen, and eventually make its way to your final piece.

George Lucas spent over $120 million dollars to create Star Wars: Episode I, yet failed to hire a type director. Even watching VH1, I see a glaring example of inattentiveness to a basic typographic glyph that appears everywhere, namely the apostrophe. You can’t make a contraction, indicate the possessive, or even write rock ’n’ roll without the apostrophe.

Yes, it’s a pet peeve. I’ve seen the ASCII apostrophe on signage in the world-renowned Rainbow Baby and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio; in magazine ads in Graphic Design: USA and Publish, and in TV commercials more times than I can count (Especially Daimler-Chrysler commercials). It’s kind of a game now, to find these incorrectly typeset apostrophes everywhere I go. Even online, typing typographer’s quotes or apostrophe requires HTML code.

Shall I succumb to the irrelevant?

By now you’re thinking that I ought to get a life, but bear with me (We type designers start from the details up). You can make your typography more beautiful (and professional) in the process. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it makes the world a better place. Really. I suspect there are a lot of people that are secretly annoyed by this, but are too embarrassed to admit it.

You don’t have to watch television for very long, or read more than one magazine, without seeing an apostrophe standing rigid in some possessive phrase or contraction.

I suspect much of the problem is due to the use of PCs in typesetting and layout, and the difficulty of typing anything other than what appears in the first two levels of the keyboard. PCs seem to be used in broadcast media, you’ll see a lot of the ASCII apostrophes on television.

Apostrophes from STF Veritas and Trebuchet; Serif apostrophes from AEF Veritas and Adobe Garamond; sans serif apostrophes from AEF Chevron and Azkidenz.

So what to do about it? The obvious solution is to buy a Macintosh computer (I am not kidding). You can achieve this degree of typographic sophistication on either platform. First, study this picture carefully: An ASCII apostrophe bears some resemblance to a tent stake, and in most cases and is rigidly vertical. The proper apostrophe will be tapered and set at a slight angle in a sans serif font, and resemble a period with an angled or curling tail descending from the bottom in a serif font. Type a comma, and you’ll more than likely be looking at something similar to what the apostrophe should look like.

Each font has two apostrophes in character slots (at least the professional fonts do, amateur fonts, the kind you download for free from the one-million-and-one-free-font sites, may be missing one, or both!) There is the ASCII apostrophe, which is set by typing the apostrophe key, and what has become known as the curly apostrophe, or smart quotes. Preferably it is called the “typographer’s apostrophe.” On the Mac, it’s set by typing the option-shift-right bracket key. In Windows, it’s set by typing alt+0146 (on my PC it doesn’t appear until I release the ALT key).

The major drawing and illustration applications, and MS Word offer simple preference settings to ensure that your apostrophe is set correctly. In InDesign, go to Preferences: Type: “Use Typographer’s Quotes.” In Freehand, go to File: Preferences: Text, and there is a check box that allows you to not only use “Curly Quotes,” but to select your preferences for US or European or other country-specific settings. Microsoft Word has a setting under Tools: AutoCorrect: Autoformat. In Quark Xpress you can set the preference for “Smart Quotes.”

It’s a little thing, but simple to correct. After all, for a typographer, the difference between typesetting and fine typography is in the details.

Stand firm. Be free. Make the world a more beautiful place through typography. And above all else, don’t be afraid to admit that that you’re bothered by ASCII apostrophes. The future of typography is in your hands. . .

Tags: Design

Disclaimer: Due to the finicky nature of browsers and HTML editors, and ASCII apostrophes in this article are unintended and we will correct them if found!

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Thanks to the readers who corrected my grammatical mistakes, which involved of course the apostrophe in the wrong place, rather than the wrong apostrophe.