Critique on New 2021 Brand Identity Unveiling

Various corporations and companies rollout new branding identities for their businesses regularly. This can include logos, word marks, specific colors, as well as guidelines for how the brand is represented. As a designer it’s important to recognize the changes that are made and critique them to see if the branding message is effective or not. This year in 2021, Pfizer released a new brand identity, so due to their leading status in the pharmaceutical industry I wanted to see if they were successful or not.

Since its birth in 1849, Pfizer has been one of the largest American pharmaceutical companies around. They focus on the creation of various medicines and vaccines, which include hundreds of prescription medications.The current brand stands for creating innovative pharmaceutical products, including cutting edge scientific research and development. Recently Pfizer has became one of the leading manufacturers for the COVID-19 vaccine, which might have prompted their new brand identity.

Besides small changes to typography or shape of their oval logo, their branding has been almost unchanged for 70 years. Pfizer’s logo evolution has been minimal, which helps to continue recognizability in the marketplace, but at what point does this become stagnant? In the past, the logo has focused on a light blue oval that envelops the word Pfizer. The oval most likely represent a pill, which connects to what continues to gain the majority of revenue for the company.

With that said, Pfizer’s new brand identity is a breath of fresh air compared to the stale logo that has been used for many decades. Instead of continuing with the same design, their team focused on the strengths of the old brand, while also creating an entirely new logo. On first glance, I was very happy with their new identity The first thing that I noticed was the typography (wordmark). The type has not been changed very dramatically at all, but instead it was cleaned up. The z and r have been straightened out, which adds to an overall crispness in the design. Even though the change is small, it still seems to have made great strides to becoming a mark that can stand alone on its own. I think the main reason behind this is because instead of having Pfizer be composed of negative space (inside the oval), it is now positive. This allows the word mark to pop, which creates a stronger contrast. This effect will help how it is shown on different mediums such as prescription bottles, advertisements, and various media platforms.

Unlike the minor changes on the word-mark, the logo was completely revamped and created from scratch. Pfizer’s new logo focuses on an image that is based on DNA and its double helix. This is where the idea of breakthroughs in innovation and progress ties in with their new identity. On first glance, I was a big fan of the new logo. It is clean and has an interesting interaction with the word-mark. However, as I looked at it overtime I was a bit confused on how the double helix is represented. I think it’s an issue of the two tone colors that are used. They make it hard to tell what is the inside versus the outside of the helix. The logo almost reminds me of an M.C Escher drawing, where you don’t know where it starts or where it ends. The more you look at it the less the 3D effect is successful. This is especially the case, when Pfizer uses the logo with one color versus their main two tone focus. From far away, the logo looks incredibly flat, which does not translate the idea of DNA at all. However, up close this problem is much less recognizable. Although my critique grew stronger the more I looked at the logo, I considered this to be a problem when looking at anything too long. Images start to breakdown and don’t communicate as well, so it is important to think about what my first impressions were, which viewed the branding as an overall success.

The last change Pfizer made to their new identity was their color palette. Pfizer has continued to keep their light blue for many years, but recently changed to more of a royal “true” blue. The original light blue seemed to of been chosen for no other reason than to continue their recognizability in the pharmaceutical market. With that in mind, them changing blues, threw me off a bit. However, the new color is more understandable when thinking about their overall brand message, which is to lead in not only pharmaceuticals, but in scientific research and innovation. Pfizer’s new dark blue commands more presence and adds a professional dynamic to the overall design. I think their new color palette pushes the identity to being much more futuristic, which expands the mind to all of the possibilities that Pfizer will be focusing on as time passes.

Overall, Pfizer’s new brand rollout seems to be a successful one. This is much more clear when thinking about how it connects to their ideals of innovation, research and development, and a bright scientific future. Their word mark and logo stand alone as an impressive mark, while the chosen colors push toward their dream of the company they want to represent. On the few advertisements and brand in use documents they produced when dropping their new identity, things seem to be working very well. With this in mind, it is obvious that they are focusing on a new direction for their company, which not only includes medications, but also on future prospects and innovation in the bio-pharmaceutical realm.

Marshall McLuhan was a visionary thinker who was able to be far ahead of his time. His ideas of media theory were not only relevant to his era (1960’s), but can still be applied today. One of his most famous ideas mentions that the message that is given can be received more or less depending on the medium that it is processed through. When you start to think about this idea deeply you can definitely see that it is true. For example, if someone told you a story about how the White House just got attacked by terrorist, it might be hard to believe. However, if the way you received the message changed and you heard about that story on a credible news channel or through your local newspaper, then the message might hold more credibility, thus being absorbed. This topic is holding much more weight today, because we are constantly being bombarded by information. To be able to stand out and allow people to notice what you are trying to say, it will be important to focus on how the message is delivered so that it can be plausible by being heard above others. This is incredibly paramount when thinking about graphic design, because sometimes it is not just enough to create a poster or graphic to put on a wall. Instead you might need to create a video to make the information more digestible. 

Various types of media are much more participatory and accessible than others. This leads to another one of McLuhan’s theories, which has to do with a scale in which media is digested.  His second theory is also known as “hot and cold media”. Hot media is something that takes little to no participation from the user and is the most immersive. A great example would be movies, where you just need to sit down and show up. Cold media on the other hand would be something like reading. With reading you have to put in effort by participating to get information out of the book. The basic principal of McLuhan’s theory is that the more participation that is required to digest information, the “hotter” it is. This is still very relevant today, but as technology grows and changes, their label on this scale will also change. Television in McLuhan’s time period was more participatory and was considered cool media. However, today this is not the case. Television is a lot like movies where you don’t need to be using your brain much to watch. This also depends on the type of program you are watching. A documentary takes more thought than reality TV and so on. Speech for example is one of the most participatory media (cool), because it takes language and background of understanding to be able to communicate back and forth. You also have to continue to think about what you will say next by responding. However, McLuhan’s black and white scale is not always going to hold up. There can always be outliers, but the overall idea can still be relevant today. The point to all of this hot and cold stuff is that the more immersive a media is helps a message become easier to get across.

As the human race moves forward in social and technological evolution we will need to keep these theories in mind. Of course the scale of hot and cool media will change, but how information is digested will be a constant question. This will be important for us as designers to focus on as we need to make sure that our message is received to its full capability.

*Image from

www.deccanherald.com/opinion/panorama/do-institutions-celebrate-teachers-887638.html

Hello,

I’m Kevin Reynolds and am a junior at Oregon State University in the Graphic Design program. I got into design as an artist/painter, but wanted to expand my creative knowledge and start to focus my study in a field that was more professionally desired. There are all kinds of things that interest me in design such as video editing, illustration, logo/branding creation, typography, and poster design. I am very bold and color oriented in my work and love to use those means to help deliver a message. A dream of mine would be to design bold packaging for breweries or other various companies. Another option is to focus on video development as this is where a lot of information is heading these days.