Jack's Sort of Back

All I meant to do was look at the new logo that Jack In The Box has rolled out. That's it! Instead, what happens? Instead I end up looking at the logos for a whole bunch of different products that have "changed" recently. Now, I've quoted "changed" because some of them really aren't that different! I don't know if the product label design guys (that's their official title, yes) don't see the similarity between some of their "Before" and some of their "After" designs, or if they know there's not much of a difference, but they think that the consuming public is so dumb that we just flock to anything that we think just might be new. I'm guessing it's the latter. Seriously, look around you. What do you see? Morons, that's correct.

Oh, but I will give them this: Some of the design changes are very apparent. Hoo-boy are they apparent. It's quite apparent that some of the new designs just suck. Those are the ones where I really want to talk to the person who was in charge of that project and said, "Looks good!" (Probably with an enthusiastic thumbs up sign, a wink and a smile, too.) Why doesn't everyone know that crap is crap when they see it? I don't know why it takes some folks longer to go, "Ooooohhhhh. Yeah. I see what you're saying. Yeah, that's crap. Sorry!"

But back to Jack. Old Jack in the Box:

New Jack. In the box. Behold!

Yeah, I don't know if I can get on board with this one. It bugs me. For one thing, there's Jack. He's not in the box! He's very much out of the box! And while I'm happy for Jack (no one particularly enjoys the confines of a box), it's misleading. But there's something about the new one that bothers me. It sort of bears an odd resemblance to the hammer and sickle on a USSR flag. Behold!

I don't know if that's it, but it reminds me of something. Thus, the chances are good that I'm going to make everyone I know crazy by continuing to bring it up any chance I get until I figure it out. Oh, you're welcome, friends! What else do we have?

Pepsi has redesigned everything they own! And apparently they figured that what was good for one redesign would be good for another redesign. And another. And another. They're not very creative over there at Pepsi. Behold!


I seem to be the only person on the planet that hates that font on everything. It's everywhere. Fat, lowercase letters...what does that prove? Not much. Not much at all. (I blame texting. Next thing you know, companies are just going to start leaving vowels out of product names. We'll have to decipher everything in the grocery store just like we do those damn text messages from our friends who don't use vowels! But I digress.) I suppose I can live with the can design, but the bottles? Well, it could just be me, but they're rather, um, see....the contours on the bottle....near the top....it has a sort of, how do I say it, um, oh, that's right. It's phallic as hell. Behold!

Eh? See! Told you so. Now, Pepsi also owns Tropicana, the orange juice people. You might remember your Tropicana juice carton looking like this:

Not anymore! And keeping with their same font and their same phallic-y sort of design, well, behold!

I don't know what was wrong with just a regular little screw top on the carton. But that rounded item there? I'm sure that their intention was to have it look like an orange. It's orange juice, that could be an orange, I see the connection. But I look at that and I don't see "orange". I look at that and I see "breast" or "nipple" or....another....anatomical part. I can't help it! (And while I can never help it, it's rarely this distracting!) Could the folks at Pepsi not think of anything else that they just had to port their lowercase, phallic design over to the juice department? You'd think that they'd have more ideas than that, really.

Pepsi works with the folks at Kraft. (I know. I know. It seems like an odd partnership, but from what I can tell, Pepsi owns just about everything out there except for Coca-Cola.) Apparently their love for the lower-case font has worn off on Kraft, as the Kraft logo has changed also.

Somehow, the logo of a company that makes "food products" (Yes! "Food products" is in quotes. Hey, macaroni and cheese is not supposed to glow orange!) must have caught the attention of a company whose product is supposed to get stains out of clothes (probably left by the "food products") because suddenly Cheer and Kraft are looking remarkably similar. It's kinda weird. Behold!

And I'm not thrilled with the muted multi-colored design, either. It has a very "feminine hygiene product" feel to it. (And no one really wants that associated with their macaroni and cheese. Ever.) I could maybe see why they'd be similar if they had anything to do with each other, but they really don't. But take the redesigns of Sunkist and Fanta Orange. Both are orange sodas. Both now look similar to each other. Both are a mess and an utter disaster. Behold!

And again with the splash-y look to it. It's soda! You don't want it to splash! (Fanta just should have left well enough alone and not changed anything. Sunkist is a train wreck from beginning to end. They just need to start over. Do they think that leaf over the "i" is going to fool anyone into believing that there is anything that might have grown on a tree at some point in that soda? Last time I checked, orange coloring does not grow on trees.)

So there you have it. Be prepared for more product design and/or logo changes with many more products in the near future. Say goodbye to capital letters and say hello to splash-y, lowercase goodness! Or something like that.

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