Pepsi’s Gravitational Pull

There’s a document circulating around the internet at the moment which is supposedly the design brief behind the new Pepsi logo. It uses all kinds of complex “science” and esoteric theory to justify the logo’s redesign including: the golden mean, the “gravitational pull” of Pepsi, perimeter oscillations and more. Pepsi’s energy fields are also explained, and somehow the relativity of space and time are involved as well.

The document’s veracity is in question because, well – it all sounds so crazy. But a Pepsi promotional video from last year uses some of the same images from the document (see below), so it’s possible this thing is real. The brief is worth a read for the comedy value alone, or if it is real, to peer into a complex design process.

Fast Company explains more:

You’ve probably seen the logo everywhere — tops of taxis, subway stops, billboards — and wondered if it was inspired by the Obama “O.” Would that it were so benign.

The design brief (right-click to save) currently making the rounds of the Web, suggests that, if done right, the new Pepsi logo will likely lead to The Rapture that Evangelicals promise is coming.  It also illustrates the extreme disconnect between the marketing world and the real world.

The presentation, by the Arnell Group (also responsible for the botched design of the Tropicana orange juice carton) contains visual representations of and comparisons with the following: the golden ratio, the Mona Lisa, the Parthenon, the Gutenberg Bible, the earth and its magnetic fields, and the solar system/universe. None of these things have anything to do with soda.

In a modest moment, the authors titled the presentation/pitch  “BREATHTAKING”.

Every page of this document is more ridiculous than the last ending with a pseudo-scientific explanation of how Pepsi’s new branding identity will manifest it’s own gravitational pull. But the craziest thing is that this pitch worked! Pepsi bought it — reportedly for several hundred million dollars — and now we have “the emoticon of a new generation.”

Fast Company: ” Pepsi Logo Design Brief: Branding Lunacy to the Max”