Trop50: Taking the Arnell out of Tropicana

With Tropicana reverting back to its old packaging, the last remaining part of Arnell's redesign is Trop50. Well, it didnt last too long. The new design on the right reverts back to many of the successful brand elements that the original had, while still keeping the Trop50 logo and that darn glass of orange juice.

The original Tropicana packaging was designed by Sterling Brands. They did not work on Trop50. Anyone know who did it?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

[Kristan]

Too busy, in my opinion! I think they should ditch the glass and put half the orange back to keep it more in line with the rest of the (reverted) design.

[Chris]

Looks like a mess!

[George]

Well, when you're selling watered down orange juice, it's only fitting you market it with a watered down design.

[Prescott Perez-Fox]

A hideous mashup! They could have easily distinguished the line by shrinking the orange-with-straw and adding the words Trop50. Or, introduce a new colour to differentiate things, or create a new word mark. This just seems like a bad compromise.

[trobs]

This is pretty ridiculous. If this was a mock up brought into a sophomore year design class, I feel as though the professor would suggest starting over... from scratch.

[50% Design 100% Pulp]

I like how the poorly resized second image (on my screen at least) has distorted the word orange near the bottom of the pack to read 'crange juice'. With the hideous pack design it seems more appropriate. One step closer to Cringe Juice.

[grubedoo]

Right on George. What a cluster ...

[Chris]

I wonder if the FDA made them take out the words 'Tropicana Pure Premium" to emphasise that it's not orange juice.

[andrew]

In this case the previous version was actually better. Im just not sure what Tropicana is thinking these days.

[Mason]

Where's the hierarchy? 'Tropicana' is the same size as 'no pulp', it's confusing. And the placement of 'Tropicana' leads me to believe that is the name of the product, not 'Trop 50'.

[Sean]

As a non-designer, I'm amused by the comments on this thread. Here you are picking apart the design, when the *market* has clearly proven that the previous design was complete failure.

Perhaps instead of talking about hierarchies, and what you learned in school, maybe this should be an opportunity to rethink your (collective) approach to design, in the context of actual consumers, instead of theoretical "truisms"?

[Pauline]

Sean - I don't think anyone is saying the previous design was any good, they're just saying that this new design is pretty average as well. Rather than trying to salvage a design gone wrong, Tropicana really should clear the mess and start again from fresh.

And yes, hierarchy is a problem with this new design - What do YOU see first when you look at the bottle? What SHOULD you see first when you look at it? Obviously I can't speak for you, but my eyes are getting a little lost.

[Tiffany]

Is it just me or does "Trop50" sound like a motor oil brand?

[awesomerobot]

We need a glass of orange juice on our orange juice container because we don't know what orange juice looks like.

Congratulations Tropicana, you went from cheesy to generic to terrible all within a year.

[mrmarkrobson]

feels very glued together... hopefully a temporary band aid

[Rob]

Simply should have been the orange w/ straw cut in half

[Evelio]

Yes, it is busier than the last one. Everyone is pretty right on the money, my biggest issue (other than the design as a whole) is the plastic orange cap. I checked it out at retail, and it is a very disturbing piece of plastic. Not anything I want to twist before breakfast, it appears to be molded from an outie belly button - I see where they were going but someone should have edited this out.

[Brianna]

Evelio, I love your description of the cap. I didnt notice it the first time...though i can think of many other things it kind of resembles, and none of them are anything I want the cap of my OJ to resemble.

[Mark@iqid.com]

If it weren't so orange I'd rub it all over me like sun-tan lotion.

Kastle

[EnergonCube]

This is what happens when clients play Frankenstein... We end up with a monster.

[Ben Weeks]

Sean, The market rejects this because it fails to function according to these design principles. We agree the failure is an objective one words like hierarchy and such may be articulating why the market rejects this. For instance in music language, I can say my friends band will fail as a pop act because they don't play in time, in tune or have any catchy hooklines. Many people will just decide they don't like it and not know why. A good musician or designer could articulate why something works or doesn't.

In the case of tropicana, the client influences the outcome considerably so I'd hesitate to say anyone is a bad designer. If tropicana is repositioning themselves strategically overall, it may not matter that people don't like this design in the short term.

[Heather]

Personally, I think everyone is too attached to the old orange juice box. I find it silly that people reacted so strongly against the new design, and I'm a designer!

As far as the re-design of the re-design... I find it clean and simple, better than the initial re-design. The tab at the top denoting: "No pulp" is much easier to read and much cleaner/less crowded than the counterpart. The Tropicana brand name is also in a much clearer position. The glass is less washed out and the added orange slice and leaves give it more depth. A definite improvement over the initial re-design.

I find most of the comments here to be too strong without noting some obvious improvements.

[Jackie DeStefano]

Please... it's just orange juice not prescription medication. I think we'll all survive the update. Why not focus on bigger things? (Yeah, I'm a designer too.)

[eland]

what! the orange cap rules! best part of the whole package.

[Bill Kerr]

Is it possible that they can't legally use the orange and straw because the trop 50 stuff is engineered?

Is it possible that this issue helped drive them to the original design system?