HOTELS.COM new logo

first i want to say thanks to the blog Brand New for having this image; they were the only other ones i could find...

with that, i wanted to comment on the hotels.com redesign. i think it is FABULOUS. recently i have been using that website to find an affordable hotel room down in eureka springs, arkansas. and the first recent time i went there, i saw the little surprise in the upper left corner: the condensed red type and bellboy were gone!!

hotels.com's old logo was sort of fun, but at the same time it is outdated. the new logo, designed by TBWA \ Chiat \ Day, (see the one in red above) is more sleek and sophisticated, and the graphic element is downplayed (see the "o"). also it leaves a little more to the imagination... elevator button? compass rose? something else? you decide. either way i like it. simplicity is key.

the yellow, more script-like logo is the non-US version of the logo. aka europe, asia, etc. i think that one is also successful, but it reminds me a little too much of holiday inn. especially because of that H. i think it works though; and probably just what the website/brand needed.

PEPSI re-design... better or not?

so i noticed at target that pepsi had new boxes. i didnt hear anything about them changing their logo... or logos. a bunch of products made by pepsi got facelifts as well: pepsi, diet pepsi, pepsi max, mountain dew, and sierra mist.

now i am not sure if i like this or not. it kind of reminds me of work done by a freshman design student, but hey, maybe pepsi is trying to start a trend. im not really a fan of the stark layout; i have been growing fond of all of the wackey designed backgrounds that were appearing on the pepsi cans.

the sans-serif, "modern" typeface is understandable (just talking about the pepsis themselves now), because that is sort of what is "now." but the logo redesign? in my opinion it is not different enough from the "old" logo. it just sort of looks like a registration error rather than a new logo. and if you look closely, regular pepsi, diet pepsi, and pepsi max all have a slightly different symbol (if you cant see it; look at the white space in the symbol). i dont get why they did that; didnt pepsi hear of visual guidelines for their logo?

now lets talk about mountain dew. first of all, have we become so lazy that we need abbreviations for EVERYTHING? 9 letters is apparently too long now. oops, i mean aprntly. i am liking the landscape vector background, which adds that mountain element. but the logo just doesnt do it for me. i really liked that shredder-esque mountain dew logo from before. its a good thing i cashed in my pepsi points to get a mountain dew beach towel back in the 90's; at least i will have that as a snuggly memento of what once was.

lest we forget sierra mist. i will skip over the glaring MIST for now, and talk about the creepy background. are those bare tree branches, spider veins, or green lightning? and what do any of those have to do with either "sierra" or "mist"? i suppose to tie in the name they decided to fog up the word mist to, well, make it look like mist. it hurts my eyes to look at it; and i kind of get creeped out a little too. the old logo was fun and colorful, and actually had a mountain in it at the top (translation of "sierra"). BRING IT BACK.

in fact, BRING THEM ALL BACK.

(note: i dont like pepsi and i would willingly choose a coke product over pepsi.)