Caribou 20 oz. Cup Comparison

Alright, kids. Today, we've got a design comparison, New v. Old.

I was at Caribou Coffee today and noticed there were two different designs to the large sized cups. One is a new cup, issued in 2012, the other is old from 2011 (possibly earlier). If you haven't been to a Caribou Coffee ever, their slogan is "Life is short. Stay awake for it." On the sides of all of their cups, they typically have had people write in what they stay awake for in their lives. Cute, catchy, gets customers involved. Great.

So, I grabbed one of the old cups and one of the new, deciding to assess each individually and to compare.

Let's start with the old one.

So, it's got the idea in there nicely. What do you stay awake for? It's got a million and one answers, but not much of a structure to it. Also, it's tough to see the "What do you stay awake for?" which makes things harder to rationalize. I like that they used different fonts to give each "awake purpose" a character all its own, but I think it creates a cluttered composition. The cup is flat out busy, and, quite honestly, a clusterfuck.

Moving onto the new one...

Alright, structure! I like that there's a constant flow and structure to this design. I also like the addition and use of the branding color blue. It gives everything a bit more depth. Also, the illustrations add to that feel good type attitude that Caribou wants to portray. Now, there are less "awake purposes" but I think that's okay in this case because it sacrifices the amount of content for quality of content and design. I love that there's a definite eyeline throughout the piece. It gets people interested in the cup. You could easily see people holding their cups up to their eyes to examine the cups. Cool. I feel like they integrated the "What do you stay awake for?" well with the branding without encroaching on the logo, slogan, etc. I also like the white space. There's room for the type to breathe, which is nice. I feel like the illustrations are good, but they feel a little like a kid drew them. Not entirely a bad thing, but since I've been pretty positive about the new cup, we'll put that one in the negative column.

Ultimately, the redesign of the 20 oz. Caribou cup is good. I like the addition of illustrations and the connections made within the space using said illustrations. Good use of color and type keep things flowing in a format that's tough to design for. Illustrations could be better, and there was definitely a sacrifice in the amount of content, but all in all, a good redesign.

That's all for now, kids. Love and Light.