Designs Thoughts by Alia

What makes Diet Coke delicious? Is it the flavor, addictive aspartame, or lack of sugar? Whatever it is it drives millions of people around the world each year to buy their favorite silver canned cola known as Diet Coke. Diet Coke was a secret mission only known by company execs till its launch in 1982. Since its debut it has become the number one diet soda brand in the US. “For aspirational adults, Diet Coke®  is the smart solution that helps keep them at the top of their game.”(Dietcoke.com). Diet Cokes mission is to help adults stay ahead of their game, so in 2017 the company hired Kenyon Weston from Huddersfield North England to redesign their logo and packaging so they too could stay ahead of the game. Diet Coke has had 14 logos over the last 39 years that have all been similar to follow their brand identity. I believe the new logo while similar to many before it brings a new fresh face to the beloved sodas identity. 

In 2017 Diet Coke executives sat down and looked at their sales numbers and noticed the diet soda wasn’t selling as well as they would like it to. Their target audience of adults was not selling well to millennials. They came up with the brilliant idea to hire a design firm that was out of house to redesign the logo and packaging for the brand. They decided to go with a small design firm of two men known as Kenyon Weston. I personally think the idea to go out of house was the best idea the Coca Cola Company made with this logo. The old logo (On the Left) reminds me of my grandmother’s house. The new logo (On the right) is slick, clean and minimalistic. 

The new logo is hot. Red is a color that draws you in and makes you feel special. Red is sexy. By creating a logo that’s driven by a bright red color such as the one on the Diet Coke can, you are daring your target audience to buy it and drink it. Diet Coke is a diet soda, and the thin red stripe of the logo insinuates the cola is sleek and meant to keep you thin. I think the small changes from the original can/logo to the new one have elevated the drink into a status of more than just what your mother or grandmother buys for lunch, to now being what the cool hipsters in New York buy for an afternoon snack at a local bodega. 

The brand identity in the new logo is important. They may have changed the logo but it’s still the recognizable Diet Coke we’ve all grown up loving. If the logo had new typography, colors, or name the rebranding wouldn’t have worked. The logo would’ve been a waste of time, but by keeping the elements from the past 14 logos and reinventing it the classiness of the original logos stays and gets a nice revamping. Through these changes Diet Coke can now reach a younger generation and stay just as stylish as the millennials who are drinking it. 

Personally I grew up loving diet coke. My mother and grandmother always had it in their houses while I was growing up. I love the old logo and packaging but as a designer and a consumer the new logo and packaging has me rethinking what Diet Coke is, and that’s the whole reason to rebrand. Diet Coke is an icon to the soda industry because it’s refreshing, addictive, and has no sugar in it. The new logo for the company has elevated the soft drink to not just taste refreshing but look sexy. Now I kinda want a Diet Coke. Do you?

Trying to understand this idea is easy, but the more you think about it the more it makes sense. What is a medium? A medium is defined as,”the material or form used by an artist, composer, or writer.” (Google). In the idea that the medium is the message, the media plays the biggest role. The example we watched in our learning this week talked about the different kinds of mediums messages can take on. Messages can be spoken, heard, seen, and felt. How a message is given to you can change how you feel about them or see them at all. So how have messages changed over time? 

Messages started off as oral tradition, hearing stories from an elder that was passed on. This kind of message medium was oral, you had to hear the messages to digest them. Next came written messages. This type of message was easier to share and became more of a personal experience. To understand this idea, think of a newspaper, only one or two people can read a newspaper at once but multiple people can hear a story at the same time. In this way messages became more personal and closed off from the rest of society. After the written word came the visual medium. The visual message is where our society lives now. This medium can be tv, advertisements, and much more. 

So how do these different types of mediums affect the way messages are interpreted, and perceived? At one point anything that was shared orally was taken as fact, today with visual messages people often are unbelieving of the messages they are seeing because they can be falsely shared. As our society has been able to connect closer with communication being so easy, it has created a sense of insecurity in the messages we receive and a huge [art of that is how our messages are derived to us. 

The importance of communication and the way we communicate is also something to think about as a designer. As a designer we have the ability to try different forms of mediums to create messages to distribute to our focus groups. We need to always think about the way messages are perceived and how many different ways we can show people our messages. It’s our job to create messages that are built for the medium. 

Hi everyone! Ive never done this whole blogging thing but here it goes…

Im a senior at Oregon State University studying graphic design and photography. I decided to get into design because my mom is an author. Kinda funny she likes to create art with words, and like to create art with computers. Basically my mom took me to a photoshoot in middle school and I saw how photographs became book covers and right then and there my love for design was born. I’m not the best designer in the world, but im passionate about it. I’m also passionate about running, reading, beaches, my dog Flynn, and baking cookies. I hope that through this blog you’re all able to learn a little bit about me and the crazy life that I choose to live.

Cheers!

Alia

Welcome to blogs.oregonstate.edu. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!