Maximal brands made minimal

Antrepo took mass-marketed product branding and reduced it to the basics: simplicity stands out when surrounded by everyone else's visual clutter. It shows just how trashy even some relatively plain brands have become. A couple of the improvements set off my genericdar, however, which got me thinking about the positive signifiers maximalist design carries in certain product categories. Perhaps this is because packaging tends to show off premium printing processes, encouraging us to assume similar quality within -- valuable when it comes to products we already know are similarly mass-produced, such as cornflakes. Flickr Set [via DF and Laughing Squid]

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Grey Devil

I agree that minimalist designs (for specific products within certain consumer categories) can hugely benefit from a more streamlined design. But overall it will come across as too simple, hence giving the product a cheap look and it can turn off certain people. Still on the flipside, some people do look for generic products since they are generally a bargain… so perhaps even then having a minimalist design can help.
bcsizemo

It’s nice he is trying to emphasize the cluttered look of some logos, but without anything other than a name what’s the point?

ie: Pringles If you didn’t know it was a potato chip, then it might be a bunch of anything…

I’m all for less flash, but it’s helpful to at least see a picture of what is inside…even if it is a fake over the top version of what you’ll be getting.
- Xenu
  
  I’m all for less flash, but it’s helpful to at least see a picture of what is inside…even if it is a fake over the top version of what you’ll be getting.
  
  I agree. I’d rather have a bottle that said “ENERGY DRINK” and left off the Red Bull logo entirely, at least that way I’d know what it was.
  - Axx
    
    I see it as an artistic evolution. True, minimalist designs don’t give you much info about what is inside the package, but that fact alone has its own appeal. If you are a consumer already familiar with the product, then the minimalist design communicates a sort of aesthetically pleasing statement that doesn’t “try”… Sort of the difference between a Jersey shore tan-in-a-can guy with too much hair gel and, say, George Clooney. Implied self confidence inspires respect.
    - lectroid
      
      “Sort of the difference between a Jersey shore tan-in-a-can guy with too much hair gel and, say, George Clooney.”
      
      So what you’re saying here is: Red Bull is for douchebags.
      
      Yeah, I can go with that.
Brian Damage

The dichotomy of Walmart’s new anorexic logo on their big fat box stores really rubs me the wrong way.

Remember those 90s Volkswagen commercials with The Orb’s “Little Fluffy Clouds”? I think we have those to thank for this new era of minimalistic branding. White space is the new argyle, or something.
Anonymous

I’m fond of Publix’s designs. It’s just a white background with an image and the name (http://savingthefamilymoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Publix-Weekly-Ad.jpg)
jacques45

I honestly like the middle step more in most cases. I know the object is to genericise the logo completely, but for most of these (excepting the nutella and a few others), the brand by itself sticks out well enough against a plain background without keeping things too busy.
frijole

A lot of these have the same problem many real redesigns have encountered, basically, they don’t understand the symbolism and meaning of the original logo, assume value is related only to impact, and strip more than just “excess”. A great example is the pre-merger Northwest Airlines rebranding: the old circled N had layer upon layer of meaning and “hidden” embelems. The redesign dropped the “N” but kept the adjacent compass point, and it was clear the designers didn’t understand that the point had far more meaning from its combination with the N than it has when left there alone.
Muse

I am all for clarity in design. I am not a fan of being simplistic and bland. There is a big difference.

These don’t seem to be very thoughtful executions of intelligent minimalist design. Design is all about communication. What distinct messages are these designs communicating? I am not sure other than: “we like our logo, but don’t care about telling you anything about our product.”

For some contrast, These are my favorite minimalist juice packaging concepts.

They are minimal and playful (a hard combination to pull off) and immediately communicate what is inside.
Anonymous

Maximals maximize!
Anonymous

The RED Bull logo in the minimalist version is blue. That’s just silly. And the sun has become a silver moon.
PJDK

What would be interesting is to take a whole bunch of different brands of the same product and do this. The Red Bull can look’s pretty classy there, but what if you did this to every canned beverage put them all on the shelf next to each other, does it still work in that context?
Anonymous

“A couple of the improvements set off my genericdar, however, which got me thinking about the positive signifiers maximalist design carries in certain product categories. ”

This is more a product of our insane level of choice for near identical products. This problem doesn’t exist everywhere in the world, it’s very much a western ‘problem’; and I mean that in terms of nationality rather than geography; i.e. a Russian living in the US often still feels bombarded by unnecessary choice.
penguinchris

I agree that most of these were taken too far. It’s a great idea – I do agree that most branding these days is unbelievably trashy – but the execution wasn’t the greatest (a couple of them are pretty good).

I don’t think minimalism is the only key here. Yes, it’s trendy at the moment, and truly well-done minimalism is a classic – my favorite style of design by far. But in many cases, such as non-transparent food packaging, a little more design is perfectly appropriate.

So what happened to the elegant designs from the 70′s and earlier? I think that’s the real problem today – there’s no elegance, no subtlety in the package designs. It’s all about grabbing your attention from all the other trashy designs on the shelf. That’s backfired in a huge way since every package looks so bad nowadays, but they haven’t seemed to figure that out yet.

Ikea is one place where everything – even the Ikea-branded foods – is very well designed and very minimalist. In that environment, the products stand out on their own merit, and the elegant packaging subtly adds to it rather than barfing in your face.
Hoocareswhadithink

Simply removing all design features like this to improve the packaging is pointless. The ‘final’ design is actually worse than the original in most cases. Putting the word ‘corn flakes’ on a blank box is not an improvement. It isn’t even good design. It’s lame.
bkad

As someone with some visual perception challenges, who is often at a lost to locate items on the shelf of my own kitchen let alone the grocery stores, the most important thing to me is that brands not change. I don’t care if they are fancy or plain, I just want to pick something and stick with it, at least for several years at a time. I hate it when I spend several minutes of time hunting for something in the store only to discover that someone changed the packaging for no apparent reason.

But I’m an edge case, I guess, and I don’t buy nearly enough stuff for brand designers to cater to me! But I will say some of those old constants (Tide laundry detergent, Arm and Hammer baking soda, Kellog’s raisin bran) will win over their more experimental competitors almost every time.
- bkad
  
  I should clarify, I want the brand designers to pick a design and stick with it for several years at a time. It is a typo to say I want to pick one brand and stick with it for years at a time. Though sometimes I do, that’s not my ambition.
Anonymous

I guarantee you that most people would think that the plainly-designed products were knock-offs or blem versions of the original products, especially if they were found in a dollar or discount store. The only one that is passable is the Schweppes logo, and that is because you can still see the product because of the clear glass bottle. Anyone responsible for the others would find themselves out of a job, very quickly.
knappa

I think the most minimalist version of Lindt was a significant improvement. Also, removing the psychotic mascot from Quick helped even though the minimalist version lacked any particular style. However, for the red bull can, he made the red bulls not be red. That’s just wrong.
blatantdisregard

Looking at the photoset, the third iteration of the Lindt chocolate seems to work the best out of all of the brands shown IMO. That may be the font though. It exudes richness and luxury.
The Mudshark

Most of those are too cheap and generic in my opinion. Although a supermarket filled with single-coloured boxes and bottles with just logos on them would look really cool, I think it would be unpractical. The Lindt one looks nice.
Anonymous

I wouldn’t say these case study examples make a great case for advocating simplicity, but I do believe packaging often “tends to show off premium printing processes” to little avail. Even worse in my opinion are ‘print production ads’ in ‘print trade magazines’. Featuring all the colour of the rainbow, they always seem to look like unicorn vomit! Bleh! I just wanted to state that for the record. Actually, the same could probably be said with contemporary poster design. But alas, I’m going off the brand topic…

@Muse: Man, those Japanese fruit boxes are a delight! Makes me want to drink some banana juice, pronto!
Anonymous

“Perhaps this is because packaging tends to show off premium printing processes”, making it harder to counterfeit (a huge problem in the developing world).

fixed.
Andy

Minimalist designs for well-known products whose names are iconic in and of themselves are no problem. In fact, I’m interested in the fact that no one has mentioned how high-end brands (think like, bottled water and stuff) often have minimalist designs. People pay more for elegant design, companies pay designers more for it.

Having said that, it would be important to not go so far that all the products look like they came out of Repo Man: http://www.brandchannel.com/images/Home/432_repo_man.jpg
Anonymous

Minimalism in advertizing is a pretty bad idea. You minimize the clutter from your ad, people respond to it. The same people later respond by minimizing the clutter of your product from their lives, and you just lost some customers.
Minimalism gets applied plenty, it isn’t like corp.s and designers hadn’t thought of it, it just doesn’t work for long.
Also, people who don’t speak the language have money too, and I would want them to buy my product. A brown can that says ‘pretzels’ wouldn’t tell them very much.