Compare and Contrast

Companies redesign and transform their logos every once in awhile.  Especially companies that are as well known as Pepsi tend to go through at least a slight transformation every ten to twenty years.  This is one of the recent Pepsi logos released in 1998 in honor of the company’s 100^th anniversary.  

http://www.logoblog.org/pepsi_logo.php

Then ten years later, in 2008, Pepsi released this as their newest logo:

http://logotalks.com/2009/03/05/new-pepsi-logo/

Design-wise, both logos really seem to be very dated from the decade that it was released.  The older of the two has that overlapping layout, while one of the most important factors in the newer logo is its spatial composition.  This logo uses the negative spaces to contribute to making the logo look cleaner and more modern.

But then looking at the first logo, texture is extremely important.  Both the actual circular design and lettering have shape and shadow that help make the logo appear actually three-dimensional.

Out of all of the transformations that the Pepsi logo under went over the last century, the transformation between these two was one of the most dramatic.  However while there are those blatant disparities, there are still some similarities that help the consumer still recognize the product.  After all, isn’t that what is most important?

First of all, the color scheme is exactly the same, but I think that the Pepsi designer would never change the logo quite that drastically.  And while the circular part of the design was transformed slightly, they are essentially the same thing in both logos.  (Again, here the second may appear more modern than the first because of its flatter and cleaner design.)  Also if you look at the scale of the circular design in comparison to the actual letters, the proportions are similar for both logos.

Corporations and companies changes logos all the time.  Sometimes they'll look very similar to the previous ones, and sometimes they'll change significant characteristics.  Some will also look better, while unfortunately some will look worse.  But even if they do take a turn for the worse, I'm sure designers will switch it up again soon enough.