Pick up a can of Coors Light today and you'll be confronted with a redesigned visual identity. The can is adorned with graphics of blue and silver, snowy mountains set against a light background, with the brand name swirling above in a red script font. Refreshing, right? But you might feel you've seen it somewhere before.
That's certainly how mineral water brand Evian has received the redesign, and it has let its feelings known on Twitter in a diss so design-y we couldn't contain our applause...
Beautiful!! Should we send you our graphical guidelines next time? 😘 https://t.co/fpJl7yIWk8August 10, 2020
So polite, but still...ouch! We have to say though, Evian has a point. Though the mountains may be a 2D model of the Colorado Rockies rather than a representation of the Alps, and the Coors font is a swirling red script (see more script fonts here), not a sans serif, the rest of elements (especially the colour palette) are so similar it's surprising no-one noticed it before it got signed off.
Evian recently minimised their packaging, eliminating the unessential plastic wrapper and stripping the design down to the bare bones – just a bottle imprinted with the product name and a pink cap. So at least the two brands won't get confused on the shelf (definitely a good thing).
From a design perspective, the Coors Light redesign does what it set out to do – it's clean, minimal, modern and definitely refreshing – it's almost a shame it's being overshadowed for having been (basically) done before. However, we enjoy the opportunity to see how a brand goes about calling another one out (see more of that here) – the interaction tells you more about a brand, giving a sense of personality and a side of brand politics we're not normally privy to.
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