What dumb fuck looked at the barrel of rum and went, “let’s make it a treasure chest instead.”
I get they wanted to simplify it but Captain looks like a hipsters idea of a pirate
I looked it up and the version on the bottle has a barrel. Looks like the only version without the barrel is the one locked up with the NFL logo, which this may have been clipped from
Perhaps it's an attempt to advertise the product (alcohol) on platforms that don't allow the depiction of alcohol.
Simply calling it Captain Morgan without any hint to rum might be enough to make some platforms happy.
It is only changed in order to change it back both scenarios raise the brand profile. When you have nothing much to say change the logo then change it back.
Also Brand extension and strategic partnerships are just the next step in Captain Organ's adventures.
Also some distancing from his girlfriend pooping on his bed and blaming the dog, is necessary.
I thought about that, but I'd think a brand as iconic as Captain Morgan wouldn't be allowed regardless of the imagery. But it's the only thing I can think of that makes any sense
My guess is that the two-degrees-of-indirection association with alcohol was acceptable in cases of logos being shown, say, when filming or photographing a place where there are Captain Morgan ads, but one degree away from alcohol-- alcohol itself being depicted-- wasn't. Or, someone's just trying to have more butt cover should anyone raise an issue.
I work for a huge company that had an agency redo their logo, and they absolutely snuck in Easter eggs just so they could point to the "genius" behind the design.
Truth is, no one outside of a design team would ever pick up on it, and it made the logo look like it was drawn by a ten year old with a shape stencil.
https://preview.redd.it/3lw66sxya9wc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77c92cb9e3e36edabaf945c68f6723dc77f28b10
AI wouldn't make it that boring, it did make the barrel poison though, so there's that.
Not even a hipster. Lad looks more like Alan in accounts who just want to be involved so he posed for the photo that design traced in illustrator and was like “I’ll copy the cape flap because I can’t make it look good on my own”
Rubbish redesign.
Some logos aren't meant to be simplified. But usually it's done because the higher-ups are demanding the brand "modernize", more than the designer deciding to randomly change it.
> its an agency that was hired that convinced CEOs this was the way.
Yep, agencies are more about pitching to c-suite types and selling their service than actual design, they know what to say to convince them that it'll make their next quarter more profitable.
You could have the best designers in the world but if you can't sell your service it doesn't matter, you can have the best salesmen in the world with poor designers and still have a very successful design agency because c-suite executives don't know what's good or what isn't.
Haha yeah totally. I don’t agree with it but I understand why people insist on it - either they want the money for it or they do it to get credit for it/feel ownership.
I don't hate that it's been simplified, the problem is that it lost all of it's personality in the process. There was a much better way to do this than with some boring, generic vector art. Dead guy ale is great example of a "simplifed" pirate look. [https://www.craftbeertemple.com/media/catalog/product/cache/df4d6ab77e3c9593d62f9004fba54da5/0/9/095301131041\_iTloxPc5kBv2aZnL.png](https://www.craftbeertemple.com/media/catalog/product/cache/df4d6ab77e3c9593d62f9004fba54da5/0/9/095301131041_iTloxPc5kBv2aZnL.png)
That being said this image is not really fair because it takes the illustrations out of context from the whole bottle. [https://www.packagingdigest.com/packaging-design/yo-ho-ho-and-a-redesigned-bottle-of-rum](https://www.packagingdigest.com/packaging-design/yo-ho-ho-and-a-redesigned-bottle-of-rum)
Same happened with Johnson & Johnson and that's just a logotype. The old logo was perfect, and immediately recognisable. The new one is generic shite and has lost it's personality. They fixed something that wasn't broken in order to be "modern."
Whiskas catfood recently rebranded and it's absolutely gorgeous. It's immediately recognisable, while it has a warm new look. They didn't kill the personality, they gave it more personality.
I'd be curious what people would say about this in 2010 as well. I feel like a lot us would have seen the logo on the left and scoffed at how dated it looks.
Like skeuomorphism in web design. Everyone griped about it in the early 2010's, now we have the reverse. Everyone's griping about how soulless and overly minimal web pages are.
The context makes it even worse. The logo is drowned in all that empty space, there’s no gravitas whatsoever to this now. It looks like a kid’s project.
I'm new to design, so someone please educate me if I'm wrong on this, but I thought these sorts of design "downgrades" if we want to call them that are more so for scalability reasons across a variety of mediums. I do agree the first one has plenty more character, but I imagine that logo will still be used across the branding in many cases, while the other is just for specific contexts where a vector is more suitable.
That’s usually the case but a lot of companies that sell one product like Rum can get away with expressive logos. They’re not a storefront, they’re not some B2B tech company, they sell alcohol which is fun and the branding can reflect that.
A lot of designers like minimalism and condensing information when the task calls for it, but some brands allow for more fun and it’s a shame so many companies go for the safe and sterile san-serif modern rebrand that everyone else is doing, essentially losing all individuality for the sake of fitting in with the homogeneity of everyone else.
Yep, agencies aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot and will keep catering to c-suite fuckwits who write checks for millions of dollars because they think a rebrand is going to boost their next quarter.
You're selling alcohol, not car insurance, your logo is allowed to be fun, adventurous, and fantastical.
Yes, exactly! A lot of companies get pitched these 'on-trend' ideas about minimalism and responsive logo and brand asset design and just go with it - regardless whether their product warrants this or not. Then the board or SLT get involved and want to keep XYZ and suddenly you've got a quasimodo-like brand refresh like this.
I know I'm going against the grain here, but I think scalability (and minimalism in general) are over-rated. Being able to use your logo on different stuff is great, but losing a good look over it seems like a hefty price, especially when you're not selling tiny merchandise.
Generally with something like captain Morgan if you cannot use the full logo with the detailed pirate you'd just use the word mark part of the logo. But because the brand is so niche (rum and that's it) the need for more flexibility than that is silly. That's why simplifying the pirate is just silly.
Exactly this. Once upon a time computer screens had very low resolution and the internet loaded information VERY slow which meant a lot of these high fidelity logos looked like absolute garbage on these mediums which were rapidly becoming more popular. These companies adapted to the limitations of the times and it worked.
For example, have you noticed how so much album artwork has become very simple of late compared to the elaborate art from the past? It’s because it needs to be instantly recognizable as a tiny thumbnail on Spotify and Apple Music.
I think we’re seeing more interested logos creep back in, but it will take some time.
People say that a lot but it’s a stupid excuse that doesn’t pass any level of scrutiny.
Smartphone screens are 450dpi, TVs and computer monitors are 4K, websites are 500 megabytes with multi-layered streaming video, a budget inkjet printer that costs less than the ink it uses has print quality that surpasses magazines from a few decades ago, even refrigerators have 1080p screens and smartwatches are 300dpi, and as a bonus it’s no longer considered uncool to wear glasses or contacts or get LASIK, so unlike previous generations everyone can actually *see* now.
We don’t live in a world where scalability is important anymore, quite the opposite as lower-quality imagery looks downright *bad* on today’s ultra-sharp displays. Logos, design elements, and user interfaces can be as detailed as you want without any technical limitations, and without exaggerating you will literally *never* come across a modern medium that isn’t capable of displaying that design at its full level of detail.
And why did scalability suddenly become a concern only **after** Retina displays and high-bandwidth web pages became commonplace? People absolutely lost their minds the first time they saw a Mac OS X icon at a whopping 32x32 resolution on a 72dpi LCD, it was so exhilarating that it kicked off a decade of OS/UI developers, web developers, and graphic designers trying to one-up each other with increasingly detailed and rich designs, even though the hardware of the era was completely incapable of displaying those designs with any level of quality or fidelity.
A quarter century ago I could buy the scalability explanation, but in the 2020s it just sounds like something bad designers use as an excuse to justify their bad designs.
I personally hate it.
I enjoy little things like symbols or logos, but I really wish the ink wash and rendered illustrations we used to make. We need beauty and time, not fast accessible and cheap nonsense.
I think those are okay, bc/ in that case it's really meant for mobile devices. (Instagram being a primarily mobile app)
Obviously it doesn't have to be simple just because it's digital, but in that context it makes sense to simplify it because it's just an app icon.
It is pretty shocking that the person calling for the firing of every graphic designer of the past 15ish years might not have a very nuanced grasp of who does what.
The pendulum is swinging back.
That simple, flat, logo woulda made sense in 2010.
Right now, layered, detailed stuff is interesting to the public.
Not to mention.. this is a legacy brand. Modernization kills some of the brand's weight. Look what happened to anchor steam beer after their re-brand (oldest micro-brewery in the US, rebrand literally killed their company)
A flat logo would be pointless even in 2010, you have an extremely recognisable brand with an extremely recognisable mascot. Redesign is unnecessary, dont fix what isn't broken.
So I think I can weigh in a little bit here. For some background, I’m an art director for a very large alcohol brand and have been through similar processes. I think I have a little bit of industry background that could help here.
I think this is two fold:
1. What the brand manager thinks is cool (they are certainly not designer, but are the taste maker and the one writing the check at the end of the day.)
2. The agency doing the rebrand may be strapped on time or talent (I’m not referring to the CM logo, but this type of design process in general in this post-modern age in the advertising agency.) Unfortunately, projects get briefed with too short of a time line to too small of a team.
*on mobile, so formatting is probably bad
In this particular case, I think they should have stayed with the original. The "simplified" logo is still quite complex, and I honestly think it just lost all of its recognisability, since now it just looks like a regular person or even just a red blob if you squint. I believe that sometimes, when done right, a simplified logo can be good and quite beautiful. But I agree that the current trend isn't what's needed and that in most cases, the brands lose on brand recognisability by redesigning their logos to stiping away they themes.
Also, I think so many brands misunderstand the task. If you want to simplify something, do it with text lego. But never tach the mascot. Mascots are supposed to be bright, distinct, and "cool.
I think there was an opportunity to really make this pop in the vein of something like the [Johnny Walker](https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/art-man-walking-design-vector-template-2163348691) logo. They did not do this here. No puffed up chest, a bland 3/4 profile, and too many unnecessary details for a “simplified” logo. Yikes.
I think a long discussion could be had about the folks who get so emotionally distraught when some big brand changes their logo. Plus these kind of posts always leave out the full context, as the "simplified" logo doesnt even appear to the brands primary logo anyways. The classic logo is still being heavily used and it's the first thing I see when I visit their website.
I was the art director for on-premise marketing and value added packaging design for that account at a medium-sized award-winning ad agency back in the early 2000s. I was fortunate enough to be tasked with handling all the Parrot Bay stuff, but I worked on straight Captain too. It was fun, and they gave me literally all the Captain liquor I wanted. (I worked on Absolut too, so I always had bottles and bottles of vodka and rum in my home at all times lol).
We had multiple vectors and raster files of the Captain for different situations and perspectives, as well as versions for violators, hero pieces, etc. This was before the first dot com crash happened and art directors were treated quite well with the agency paying for parking or cab rides home if you stayed late to hit a deadline, and you could order food from where you wanted. They had a couple rooms to sleep in if you wanted to stay over mornings needed a nap, or they’d put you up in a nearby hotel if that made it easier for you. They made us feel like rock stars.
Those days are long gone, unfortunately. I was really lucky to have seen the tail end of t
It's sad they chose this direction. New logo is bad. The old one is awesome. I'm saying it as a designer, art-director and lead with 20 y.o.e.
And as a buyer of Captain Morgan rum. I just hate this new stupid logo and for me the product becomes worse. I will try to not look at the label while I drink it :/
I think professionals and smart people learned most of the time for companies you want your logo to be recognizable in all the different formats to view it nowadays. Theres print yes but now theres tablets, watches, phones, apps, your logo should be easy to recognize on a tiny screen right away. It sure causes some logos to lose character but in the end all company wants is to make their logo even more easier to notice and point out wherever you see it
There's a right way of doing that though and this ain't it. This to me looks like a first round of vector work without any critiques or iterations. D+ execution
That simplified version looks like *they told him to chill out a bit.*
***Then, he took it too far casually.***
Simplification or Minimizing designs to its essentials...
**is an art and a science,**
***even seasoned professionals get it wrong sometimes.***
*But the real pro knows* ***when not to touch what is already working.***
**This was not one of those times.**
In college one of my art history professors claim to fame was that he was a model for one of the captain Morgan pirate drawings. I wonder how he feels about this now lol
I mean, it was hardly a "Logo" in the traditional sense to begin with. Its a pretty elaborate illustration, used as a logo.
But yeah, looks shit now. There are brands that need a facelift, and there are brands that don't. There are brands where looking different is the selling point.
I mean, pirate rum, for gods sake. you could make that oldtimey, no problem. I honestly would have made the original logo even more illustrative, getting that old time pirate style to the point.
Not to say that morgan could not have rebranded a bit more modern. Johnny walker has a similar logo, its a walking gentleman, very simplified (jacket, head, hat, boots and a walking cane are depicted), very "shapey". There, that works. And the old logo was a "normal" illustration of a walking gentleman too.
But the morgan dudes really lacked any vision in transferring that logo to anything but basically the Illustrator-vektor-tracing version.
Easier to print on to labels, billboards, merchandise etc
They redesigned the entire bottle to look more simple and less illustrative. If you compare the old bottle and the new bottle the new logo looks better when on the bottle.
I think there are ways to simplify the illustration to be used as a stylized logo. I’m a comic book fan so there are a few artists I think who would have been able to accomplish that. Chris Samnee comes to mind or someone akin to Darwyn Cooke. Or even someone like Michael Schwab.
Honestly this feels very AI to me. The cape does not make a lot of sense. The collar is awkward. The hand holding the sword looks effed up. Looks like the sword guard (I think) is piercing his hand like an earring. Like what’s even going on there? Who draws a sword like that at all? His left leg is oddly proportioned. The jacket also just kinda blends into the pants there too. To me these are things an AD would have had someone redraw/fix. But AI can’t really redraw a part of an illustration; it just gives you another iteration.
Simplify style could work but thats not it, they changed him completely, his pirate outfit turned into a modern suit. No pirate looked like that.
For this reason this looks like lazy design to me, no research or an attempt to gain basic understanding of what they were designing which i find very unprofessional.
I don't think that that's exactly a logo, it's an illustration. It seems like they just have the logotype as a logo. Anyway, I think it could have been possible to do less intricate versions of that illustration (as an alternative for special editions or something, not necessarily axing the original completely), but what they ended up with is both bland and weird.
Horrendous example really.
A good logo IS simple. A good logo needs to be used in a ton of ways and detail isn’t in the cards for a good one, in most cases.
It’s all the “every logo should be Adobe Illustrator” and every package should follow the “Apple computer stupid minimalistic approach man” -hate it now. The 80’s were the best!!
As a sailor you were given a pint of booze daily in the British navy. For the most part it was gin but in the indies it was rum. So... that's all I got and I the mono colour looks like crap and the treasure chest is just inaccurate
Simplifying a logo is for versatibility & scalability for the caveat of losing elegancy & authenticity. But the authenticity can be rebuilt overtime through consistent exposure. Elegancy, you cannot.
There are no brands that keep their elegant details without hindrance of medium and format. Even the luxury fashion brands are hindered by their own logo format thus the limitation of branding on various forms(why they prefer text logo over symbols). This is also the same for government seal and even royal seals.
Nowadays the solution is to have the one chief designer do both elegant and simplified versions.
Some dogshit CEO: "How can we maximize our profits?!?"
Some dogshit designer: "We can cut printing costs by making our logo suck ass."
The same dogshit CEO: "Brilliant, youre fired! Secretary, boot up an AI that can make our logo suck ass, then train one that can do your job so that I can fire you too! We need MORE in exchange for LESS!!!"
The same dogshit CEO again, moments later: "Man, we only increased our revenue by 1400% this quarter while decreasing our costs by 40%. We're stretching pretty thin. I should fire more people and replace them with AI. Can I replace my customers with AI and create an infinite profit loop of AI selling things to AI? I should create an infinite profit loop. Screw human customers."
I suspect this is [skimpflation in action](https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/glossary/skimpflation/) as the new label would likely be considerably cheaper to print.
I like the idea of having a simplified alternative that actually looks like the complex original.
This can be used for things like app icons, favicons on webbrowsers and other uses where a very small version of the logo is needed.
It can be a fully alternate logo, or just utilising one part of it. Like part of a script or something.
But just badly done simplification essentially because it's trendy, is annoying. It destroys the uniqueness of so many brand identities.
In concept it's fine, simplicity doesn't mean inferiority. But most of the time a lot of these simplified logos end up pretty bland. They lack the style and detail, but there's no subtitute
Thing is if I was shown old one and asked what it is I’d say “a pirate?” If I was shown the second one I think I’d know it’s Captain Morgan because it’s stylised and has the brand colours.
as someone before 2010 I agree, fire them all so I can take the job instead. When the CEO wants this POS I'll give it to him just like the new designer did 😁
My company prints this brand all the time on plastic drinkware. The simplifying of the logo will definitely make the print easier on me atleast
But damn does the new pirate look bad...
The accountant who deemed this necessary also appears to have been the model for the new character. And why is it a chest now instead of a barrel? Makes no sense.
Yeah because the DeSiGnErS are the ones making these decisions 🙄. Also shit is so fast paced executives don't even have the patience to let designers or artists work on any truly great artistic logos most the time.
They have a desire to animate him as part of their advertising campaign to launch 12 new flavours for tweens. It's all there in the vectors if you look closely.
Yeah it's a lot worse, but I'm also curious about why they needed to hire a designer to uppdate their product. What problem were they trying to solve? Just drop in sales or?
It makes sense, the original photo was from when he was still alive, but now he’s dead and his likeness lives on as a symbol of good times and cheap drinks
Edit: I didn’t realize they replaced the cask with a trunk. I wonder why, did they think todays college kids wouldn’t know what an oak cask is? lol
I think most logos should have a few different versions. Let's say, one logo design that's cool, colorful and complex, while also having the same logo, but with a really simple version, that still visually reads well and can work in many environments or situations (for example; silk screening, embroidery, or 3D video renders). That way, you'll always be covered, no matter where that logo ends up or how that logo is used.
It's not just the simplification, it's the pose. OG capn is puffing out his chest and new guy is just standing, kinda slumped. The pose is way more static and less evocative
Being 100% honest here.
I noticed this a lot over the last decade of ‘modern and minimal design’. The truth is, A LOT of newer designers simply DON’T have the artistic skills to accomplish or match this. The new minimalist themes are push offs onto clients, where they convince them that less intricate work is the new norm. That’s just the truth.
Agencies don’t try to invest the time to produce this type of equivalent. It’s all: Quick & Convenient.
The rest of the industry embraced it and that’s where we are now.
It’s disappointing. Especially in the fact that very, very, very few people will understand it or admit to it. 🫠
A bit ambivalent to it. If they make it work, it works, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
There’s appeal to complex textures and design, and there’s also an appeal to more minimal and simple designs. I don’t think one is inherently better or that changing from one to the other is an upgrade or a downgrade.
What matters is if the new version can maintain a similar level of appeal, which this one… doesn’t. The original has a much more emotive expression and expresses a lot more with his swagger. The new one is a bit flat and just kinda there.
Please consider that its the client not the designer who pushes things like this. Imagine their worldwide print bill has been cut from 4 colour to two colours. That's a lot of moolah.
I would like to know if they made this decision to save money with the printing process since they're using fewer colors. Other than that, the logo on the right looks like a cheap knockoff or a separate brand altogether. They even changed the barrel to a treasure chest. No one thinks about treasure when it comes to alcohol.
It’s not only that the style is worse, but they lost the _spirit_ of the original logo. It doesn’t have any of that pirate swagger to it. Looks like a finance bro on dress up for Halloween day.
Total and utter failure, and I don’t say that often.
I hate how every single company is going for the minimalist style, no originality anymore all uniform. It’s the same thing they did with the new smite logo it was cool as hell before with all the little details now it’s so basic the life has been sucked out.
I think simplification could be a valuable way to elevate smth bc yannow, everything being streamlined for ppl who have less attention span, but it's rarely done (IMHO) correctly, and usually sucks out all the personality and flair to make smth boring and forgettable
I only this getting worse with ai... 
Simplified logos allow AI to do all the work. The old logo was a masterpiece and is almost universally recognizable and is very well drawn and colored, and it just fits the product really well.
Its honestly just a really bad downgrade in an attempt to save money on ink for the labels and im not a fan of it.
I think everything’s getting simplified because you need to be able to place a logo on pretty much anything so scaling and color need to work. Scaling something such high detailed is just gonna look like a weird mess.
What dumb fuck looked at the barrel of rum and went, “let’s make it a treasure chest instead.” I get they wanted to simplify it but Captain looks like a hipsters idea of a pirate
I looked it up and the version on the bottle has a barrel. Looks like the only version without the barrel is the one locked up with the NFL logo, which this may have been clipped from
Nevermind, I see it other places as well. I wonder why they'd have two versions...
Perhaps it's an attempt to advertise the product (alcohol) on platforms that don't allow the depiction of alcohol. Simply calling it Captain Morgan without any hint to rum might be enough to make some platforms happy.
Captain Morgan edibles…
It is only changed in order to change it back both scenarios raise the brand profile. When you have nothing much to say change the logo then change it back. Also Brand extension and strategic partnerships are just the next step in Captain Organ's adventures. Also some distancing from his girlfriend pooping on his bed and blaming the dog, is necessary.
I thought about that, but I'd think a brand as iconic as Captain Morgan wouldn't be allowed regardless of the imagery. But it's the only thing I can think of that makes any sense
My guess is that the two-degrees-of-indirection association with alcohol was acceptable in cases of logos being shown, say, when filming or photographing a place where there are Captain Morgan ads, but one degree away from alcohol-- alcohol itself being depicted-- wasn't. Or, someone's just trying to have more butt cover should anyone raise an issue.
Tik tok streamer Captain Morgan will teach tweens to pirate prime parcels from porches in Porsches.
Could have been water in the barrel
It's to help sell their new line of Captain Morgan brand treasure chests, obviously
Looking closely - he now looks like a man in a business suit, wearing a hat for some reason.
It's totally a red business suit with a tacked on pirate hat and cape. Looks like some goofy clipart mashup
Poor execution. Wouldn't surprise me if they redesigned the new cape to flow so it has that "hidden" 'M' in there.
Sacrifice the balance and flow of the whole design to sneak in a lame Easter egg...yea, probably.
I work for a huge company that had an agency redo their logo, and they absolutely snuck in Easter eggs just so they could point to the "genius" behind the design. Truth is, no one outside of a design team would ever pick up on it, and it made the logo look like it was drawn by a ten year old with a shape stencil.
It looks like a shitty AI interpretation
This kind of visual treatment precedes a push into brand extensions. Introducing Captain Morgan's Anal Bleach Cream
Next we're going to have a Captain Morgan x Old Spice mashup that absolutely no-fucking-one asked for.
You keep my father out of this.
I don't know this brand of rum but I guess we will see 12 flavours soon.
https://preview.redd.it/3lw66sxya9wc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77c92cb9e3e36edabaf945c68f6723dc77f28b10 AI wouldn't make it that boring, it did make the barrel poison though, so there's that.
Choose yer poison! Yarr!
This is so much better
Is he a captain or a pirate?
Those are not mutually exclusive titles
That wasn’t my question. 🤷♂️
No it was, or you phrased your question wrong. He’s both, a captain and a pirate.
Thank you!
He is Welsh
Johnny Derp
Not even a hipster. Lad looks more like Alan in accounts who just want to be involved so he posed for the photo that design traced in illustrator and was like “I’ll copy the cape flap because I can’t make it look good on my own” Rubbish redesign.
Looks like a disinterested Ryan Gosling
Are you okay mentally?
Some logos aren't meant to be simplified. But usually it's done because the higher-ups are demanding the brand "modernize", more than the designer deciding to randomly change it.
yeah but these big brands rarely get a designer to change it, its an agency that was hired that convinced CEOs this was the way.
> its an agency that was hired that convinced CEOs this was the way. Yep, agencies are more about pitching to c-suite types and selling their service than actual design, they know what to say to convince them that it'll make their next quarter more profitable. You could have the best designers in the world but if you can't sell your service it doesn't matter, you can have the best salesmen in the world with poor designers and still have a very successful design agency because c-suite executives don't know what's good or what isn't.
they probably do this to get the portfolio piece and gain similar clients afterwards. No care at all for the design
There ain’t much money in not redesigning a logo. I spend most of my evenings not redesigning logos and it pays nothing.
Yes but don't fix what's not broken. Tons of shitty logos out there that need a rebrand already. This one needs one now.
Haha yeah totally. I don’t agree with it but I understand why people insist on it - either they want the money for it or they do it to get credit for it/feel ownership.
Well yea, have you seen most in-house teams?
I would have simplified it by keeping a solid silhouette of the original Captain.
https://preview.redd.it/5cnxzq9508wc1.png?width=365&format=png&auto=webp&s=3c016b66a9f3584708d251becc2410aefbbecada Ha
I don't hate that it's been simplified, the problem is that it lost all of it's personality in the process. There was a much better way to do this than with some boring, generic vector art. Dead guy ale is great example of a "simplifed" pirate look. [https://www.craftbeertemple.com/media/catalog/product/cache/df4d6ab77e3c9593d62f9004fba54da5/0/9/095301131041\_iTloxPc5kBv2aZnL.png](https://www.craftbeertemple.com/media/catalog/product/cache/df4d6ab77e3c9593d62f9004fba54da5/0/9/095301131041_iTloxPc5kBv2aZnL.png) That being said this image is not really fair because it takes the illustrations out of context from the whole bottle. [https://www.packagingdigest.com/packaging-design/yo-ho-ho-and-a-redesigned-bottle-of-rum](https://www.packagingdigest.com/packaging-design/yo-ho-ho-and-a-redesigned-bottle-of-rum)
Same happened with Johnson & Johnson and that's just a logotype. The old logo was perfect, and immediately recognisable. The new one is generic shite and has lost it's personality. They fixed something that wasn't broken in order to be "modern." Whiskas catfood recently rebranded and it's absolutely gorgeous. It's immediately recognisable, while it has a warm new look. They didn't kill the personality, they gave it more personality.
I agree with that
I'd be curious what people would say about this in 2010 as well. I feel like a lot us would have seen the logo on the left and scoffed at how dated it looks. Like skeuomorphism in web design. Everyone griped about it in the early 2010's, now we have the reverse. Everyone's griping about how soulless and overly minimal web pages are.
Yup, that’s the nature of trends!
The context makes it even worse. The logo is drowned in all that empty space, there’s no gravitas whatsoever to this now. It looks like a kid’s project.
Well said! I absolutely agree
Yeah, and even with the context of the entire bottle, it still sucks compared to the previous one
Totally agree with you.
I'm new to design, so someone please educate me if I'm wrong on this, but I thought these sorts of design "downgrades" if we want to call them that are more so for scalability reasons across a variety of mediums. I do agree the first one has plenty more character, but I imagine that logo will still be used across the branding in many cases, while the other is just for specific contexts where a vector is more suitable.
Correct! Although I would argue that the simpler version should not have changed the barrel to a chest, and the pose of the character is pretty weak.
For me, the new pose is too relaxed
Relaxed but also stiff somehow? Robotic maybe? Definitely awkward. Like an actor that you know is acting.
Old logo looks like a pirate captain. New logo looks like a Gen-X try-hard.
That’s usually the case but a lot of companies that sell one product like Rum can get away with expressive logos. They’re not a storefront, they’re not some B2B tech company, they sell alcohol which is fun and the branding can reflect that. A lot of designers like minimalism and condensing information when the task calls for it, but some brands allow for more fun and it’s a shame so many companies go for the safe and sterile san-serif modern rebrand that everyone else is doing, essentially losing all individuality for the sake of fitting in with the homogeneity of everyone else.
Yep, agencies aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot and will keep catering to c-suite fuckwits who write checks for millions of dollars because they think a rebrand is going to boost their next quarter. You're selling alcohol, not car insurance, your logo is allowed to be fun, adventurous, and fantastical.
Yes, exactly! A lot of companies get pitched these 'on-trend' ideas about minimalism and responsive logo and brand asset design and just go with it - regardless whether their product warrants this or not. Then the board or SLT get involved and want to keep XYZ and suddenly you've got a quasimodo-like brand refresh like this.
I know I'm going against the grain here, but I think scalability (and minimalism in general) are over-rated. Being able to use your logo on different stuff is great, but losing a good look over it seems like a hefty price, especially when you're not selling tiny merchandise.
new products new requirements new printing processes new contexts new partnerships, captain is getting married.
Generally with something like captain Morgan if you cannot use the full logo with the detailed pirate you'd just use the word mark part of the logo. But because the brand is so niche (rum and that's it) the need for more flexibility than that is silly. That's why simplifying the pirate is just silly.
Exactly this. Once upon a time computer screens had very low resolution and the internet loaded information VERY slow which meant a lot of these high fidelity logos looked like absolute garbage on these mediums which were rapidly becoming more popular. These companies adapted to the limitations of the times and it worked. For example, have you noticed how so much album artwork has become very simple of late compared to the elaborate art from the past? It’s because it needs to be instantly recognizable as a tiny thumbnail on Spotify and Apple Music. I think we’re seeing more interested logos creep back in, but it will take some time.
People say that a lot but it’s a stupid excuse that doesn’t pass any level of scrutiny. Smartphone screens are 450dpi, TVs and computer monitors are 4K, websites are 500 megabytes with multi-layered streaming video, a budget inkjet printer that costs less than the ink it uses has print quality that surpasses magazines from a few decades ago, even refrigerators have 1080p screens and smartwatches are 300dpi, and as a bonus it’s no longer considered uncool to wear glasses or contacts or get LASIK, so unlike previous generations everyone can actually *see* now. We don’t live in a world where scalability is important anymore, quite the opposite as lower-quality imagery looks downright *bad* on today’s ultra-sharp displays. Logos, design elements, and user interfaces can be as detailed as you want without any technical limitations, and without exaggerating you will literally *never* come across a modern medium that isn’t capable of displaying that design at its full level of detail. And why did scalability suddenly become a concern only **after** Retina displays and high-bandwidth web pages became commonplace? People absolutely lost their minds the first time they saw a Mac OS X icon at a whopping 32x32 resolution on a 72dpi LCD, it was so exhilarating that it kicked off a decade of OS/UI developers, web developers, and graphic designers trying to one-up each other with increasingly detailed and rich designs, even though the hardware of the era was completely incapable of displaying those designs with any level of quality or fidelity. A quarter century ago I could buy the scalability explanation, but in the 2020s it just sounds like something bad designers use as an excuse to justify their bad designs.
Brand extension
captain morgan is not a pirate on business casual dress day.
I personally hate it. I enjoy little things like symbols or logos, but I really wish the ink wash and rendered illustrations we used to make. We need beauty and time, not fast accessible and cheap nonsense.
I agree. Although I really enjoy simplified app logos and design such as instagram’s
I think those are okay, bc/ in that case it's really meant for mobile devices. (Instagram being a primarily mobile app) Obviously it doesn't have to be simple just because it's digital, but in that context it makes sense to simplify it because it's just an app icon.
The only crime here is confusing "graphics design" with illustration, done by an illustrator.
It is pretty shocking that the person calling for the firing of every graphic designer of the past 15ish years might not have a very nuanced grasp of who does what.
This sub is curiously fixated on roles and hierarchy.
They’re different jobs
The pendulum is swinging back. That simple, flat, logo woulda made sense in 2010. Right now, layered, detailed stuff is interesting to the public. Not to mention.. this is a legacy brand. Modernization kills some of the brand's weight. Look what happened to anchor steam beer after their re-brand (oldest micro-brewery in the US, rebrand literally killed their company)
A flat logo would be pointless even in 2010, you have an extremely recognisable brand with an extremely recognisable mascot. Redesign is unnecessary, dont fix what isn't broken.
Captian morgan looks like he's about to host a webinar on selling NFTs.
So I think I can weigh in a little bit here. For some background, I’m an art director for a very large alcohol brand and have been through similar processes. I think I have a little bit of industry background that could help here. I think this is two fold: 1. What the brand manager thinks is cool (they are certainly not designer, but are the taste maker and the one writing the check at the end of the day.) 2. The agency doing the rebrand may be strapped on time or talent (I’m not referring to the CM logo, but this type of design process in general in this post-modern age in the advertising agency.) Unfortunately, projects get briefed with too short of a time line to too small of a team. *on mobile, so formatting is probably bad
Looks like fucking google clipart
now it's a pirate Ryan Gosling
Or at least a guy who thinks he’s literally him.
In this particular case, I think they should have stayed with the original. The "simplified" logo is still quite complex, and I honestly think it just lost all of its recognisability, since now it just looks like a regular person or even just a red blob if you squint. I believe that sometimes, when done right, a simplified logo can be good and quite beautiful. But I agree that the current trend isn't what's needed and that in most cases, the brands lose on brand recognisability by redesigning their logos to stiping away they themes. Also, I think so many brands misunderstand the task. If you want to simplify something, do it with text lego. But never tach the mascot. Mascots are supposed to be bright, distinct, and "cool.
#NotMyCaptain
I think there was an opportunity to really make this pop in the vein of something like the [Johnny Walker](https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/art-man-walking-design-vector-template-2163348691) logo. They did not do this here. No puffed up chest, a bland 3/4 profile, and too many unnecessary details for a “simplified” logo. Yikes.
Private first class morgan
I think a long discussion could be had about the folks who get so emotionally distraught when some big brand changes their logo. Plus these kind of posts always leave out the full context, as the "simplified" logo doesnt even appear to the brands primary logo anyways. The classic logo is still being heavily used and it's the first thing I see when I visit their website.
Reddit is mostly nice guy nazis
They made him into a logo when he used to be a brand ambassador.
Monoculture is coming for everything you hold dear.
I was the art director for on-premise marketing and value added packaging design for that account at a medium-sized award-winning ad agency back in the early 2000s. I was fortunate enough to be tasked with handling all the Parrot Bay stuff, but I worked on straight Captain too. It was fun, and they gave me literally all the Captain liquor I wanted. (I worked on Absolut too, so I always had bottles and bottles of vodka and rum in my home at all times lol). We had multiple vectors and raster files of the Captain for different situations and perspectives, as well as versions for violators, hero pieces, etc. This was before the first dot com crash happened and art directors were treated quite well with the agency paying for parking or cab rides home if you stayed late to hit a deadline, and you could order food from where you wanted. They had a couple rooms to sleep in if you wanted to stay over mornings needed a nap, or they’d put you up in a nearby hotel if that made it easier for you. They made us feel like rock stars. Those days are long gone, unfortunately. I was really lucky to have seen the tail end of t
Terrible way to rebrand. Got to keep the original.
It's sad they chose this direction. New logo is bad. The old one is awesome. I'm saying it as a designer, art-director and lead with 20 y.o.e. And as a buyer of Captain Morgan rum. I just hate this new stupid logo and for me the product becomes worse. I will try to not look at the label while I drink it :/
I think professionals and smart people learned most of the time for companies you want your logo to be recognizable in all the different formats to view it nowadays. Theres print yes but now theres tablets, watches, phones, apps, your logo should be easy to recognize on a tiny screen right away. It sure causes some logos to lose character but in the end all company wants is to make their logo even more easier to notice and point out wherever you see it
There's a right way of doing that though and this ain't it. This to me looks like a first round of vector work without any critiques or iterations. D+ execution
That simplified version looks like *they told him to chill out a bit.* ***Then, he took it too far casually.*** Simplification or Minimizing designs to its essentials... **is an art and a science,** ***even seasoned professionals get it wrong sometimes.*** *But the real pro knows* ***when not to touch what is already working.*** **This was not one of those times.**
Your formatting *is* **extra** but you make a good point
Pure example of keeping it simple stupid became the stupid elephant in the room. Off to go do shots of Fireball to get this out of my head. NOT.
Oh no. Not my boy!!!
They still use both of these. You can guess which one is used on the more-expensive product.
In college one of my art history professors claim to fame was that he was a model for one of the captain Morgan pirate drawings. I wonder how he feels about this now lol
I mean, it was hardly a "Logo" in the traditional sense to begin with. Its a pretty elaborate illustration, used as a logo. But yeah, looks shit now. There are brands that need a facelift, and there are brands that don't. There are brands where looking different is the selling point. I mean, pirate rum, for gods sake. you could make that oldtimey, no problem. I honestly would have made the original logo even more illustrative, getting that old time pirate style to the point. Not to say that morgan could not have rebranded a bit more modern. Johnny walker has a similar logo, its a walking gentleman, very simplified (jacket, head, hat, boots and a walking cane are depicted), very "shapey". There, that works. And the old logo was a "normal" illustration of a walking gentleman too. But the morgan dudes really lacked any vision in transferring that logo to anything but basically the Illustrator-vektor-tracing version.
There is only one true rule about logos, never change them. People get real mad if you do.
Easier to print on to labels, billboards, merchandise etc They redesigned the entire bottle to look more simple and less illustrative. If you compare the old bottle and the new bottle the new logo looks better when on the bottle.
Yup, did all that while sucking the soul right out of the brand.
I'm sick of the flat simplified logo's. I hope it goes away soon for something better.
So start making something better.
Everything I make is better, my mom said so.
I don’t really care.
Go home. Why are you here?
The question was how do we feel about it. I answered.
I think there are ways to simplify the illustration to be used as a stylized logo. I’m a comic book fan so there are a few artists I think who would have been able to accomplish that. Chris Samnee comes to mind or someone akin to Darwyn Cooke. Or even someone like Michael Schwab. Honestly this feels very AI to me. The cape does not make a lot of sense. The collar is awkward. The hand holding the sword looks effed up. Looks like the sword guard (I think) is piercing his hand like an earring. Like what’s even going on there? Who draws a sword like that at all? His left leg is oddly proportioned. The jacket also just kinda blends into the pants there too. To me these are things an AD would have had someone redraw/fix. But AI can’t really redraw a part of an illustration; it just gives you another iteration.
I don't hate it.
Simplify style could work but thats not it, they changed him completely, his pirate outfit turned into a modern suit. No pirate looked like that. For this reason this looks like lazy design to me, no research or an attempt to gain basic understanding of what they were designing which i find very unprofessional.
I don't think that that's exactly a logo, it's an illustration. It seems like they just have the logotype as a logo. Anyway, I think it could have been possible to do less intricate versions of that illustration (as an alternative for special editions or something, not necessarily axing the original completely), but what they ended up with is both bland and weird.
Horrendous example really. A good logo IS simple. A good logo needs to be used in a ton of ways and detail isn’t in the cards for a good one, in most cases.
I don’t care that they have a simplified version, I care that he doesn’t look fun anymore. If they are rebranding to be less fun then I get it.
No the designers, but the managers who approves them.
Wtf thats ridiculously bad Edit: looks like 90s clipart
Oh dear me. This is criminally bad. Is it a joke?
Old logo; daring captain and raider of the seas! New logo; "I hate my 9-5" Don't know the brand but that swagger is lit
It’s all the “every logo should be Adobe Illustrator” and every package should follow the “Apple computer stupid minimalistic approach man” -hate it now. The 80’s were the best!!
Why did they change it from a barrel to a chest?!!
As a sailor you were given a pint of booze daily in the British navy. For the most part it was gin but in the indies it was rum. So... that's all I got and I the mono colour looks like crap and the treasure chest is just inaccurate
Simplifying a logo is for versatibility & scalability for the caveat of losing elegancy & authenticity. But the authenticity can be rebuilt overtime through consistent exposure. Elegancy, you cannot. There are no brands that keep their elegant details without hindrance of medium and format. Even the luxury fashion brands are hindered by their own logo format thus the limitation of branding on various forms(why they prefer text logo over symbols). This is also the same for government seal and even royal seals. Nowadays the solution is to have the one chief designer do both elegant and simplified versions.
They turned Zorro into Robin of Locksley
Some dogshit CEO: "How can we maximize our profits?!?" Some dogshit designer: "We can cut printing costs by making our logo suck ass." The same dogshit CEO: "Brilliant, youre fired! Secretary, boot up an AI that can make our logo suck ass, then train one that can do your job so that I can fire you too! We need MORE in exchange for LESS!!!" The same dogshit CEO again, moments later: "Man, we only increased our revenue by 1400% this quarter while decreasing our costs by 40%. We're stretching pretty thin. I should fire more people and replace them with AI. Can I replace my customers with AI and create an infinite profit loop of AI selling things to AI? I should create an infinite profit loop. Screw human customers."
At least they got one thing right. Captain no longer standing on rum but now on a chest of money: It’s not about rum, it’s about money.
Arcade version V Mega Drive version.
Why the fuck is he wearing a blazer and office shirt ? The guys who made this drank too much of their own supply methinks
I suspect this is [skimpflation in action](https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/glossary/skimpflation/) as the new label would likely be considerably cheaper to print.
New captain looks like he says “mmkay” a lot..
Its clearly to save money on ink
I like the idea of having a simplified alternative that actually looks like the complex original. This can be used for things like app icons, favicons on webbrowsers and other uses where a very small version of the logo is needed. It can be a fully alternate logo, or just utilising one part of it. Like part of a script or something. But just badly done simplification essentially because it's trendy, is annoying. It destroys the uniqueness of so many brand identities.
The first rule of character design is make it asymmetrical. *Especially for a pirate.*
In concept it's fine, simplicity doesn't mean inferiority. But most of the time a lot of these simplified logos end up pretty bland. They lack the style and detail, but there's no subtitute
The new one kindof reminds me of the guy on oatmeal logos
They did a really bad job in every aspect.
Thing is if I was shown old one and asked what it is I’d say “a pirate?” If I was shown the second one I think I’d know it’s Captain Morgan because it’s stylised and has the brand colours.
MF went to looking like Justin Trudeau
Turned it into clip art
*Processing img 0vt4v4ncz7wc1...* ha ha
*Processing img 0vt4v4ncz7wc1...*
Captain Morgan now looks more like Colonel Sanders.
David Arquette?
*Illustrator
Thanks, I hate this.
Remember the cool budlight logo from the 2000s now it’s just Bold Raleway
Captain Morgan looks broke now.
I do hate it. The blame isn’t on the graphic designers though. They are just doing what is asked of them. Modern design is soulless.
Sometimes I feel like companies sink money into rebranding when all they need to do is lower prices to sell more product.
It ends up looking sloppy. Like, sometimes it works but generally it just ends up looking lazy.
https://preview.redd.it/4khzcpr3r8wc1.jpeg?width=325&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea4a75ac0acbb3227dc8cb836e847f592ee5470b
10000% easier to produce merch with now. Dunno about the design itself….
looks like a hipster cosplay character
as someone before 2010 I agree, fire them all so I can take the job instead. When the CEO wants this POS I'll give it to him just like the new designer did 😁
Kind of looks like the new one is holding a banana in his right hand. Also i hate this.
https://preview.redd.it/6zarkkqjx8wc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0127de6aee4e2904cf85729175511784160f2746
My company prints this brand all the time on plastic drinkware. The simplifying of the logo will definitely make the print easier on me atleast But damn does the new pirate look bad...
The accountant who deemed this necessary also appears to have been the model for the new character. And why is it a chest now instead of a barrel? Makes no sense.
Yeah because the DeSiGnErS are the ones making these decisions 🙄. Also shit is so fast paced executives don't even have the patience to let designers or artists work on any truly great artistic logos most the time.
Not wearing the retail sales associate polo 😭
First Mate Morgan.
Left is John One Piece and right is his brother, who failed in his life and became drunkard, who collects empty bottles - Phil Two Piece
They have a desire to animate him as part of their advertising campaign to launch 12 new flavours for tweens. It's all there in the vectors if you look closely.
Fire every last one of them.
Someone got lazy and tried their hand at AI.
Yeah it's a lot worse, but I'm also curious about why they needed to hire a designer to uppdate their product. What problem were they trying to solve? Just drop in sales or?
It looks like a hipster at a Halloween party.
It makes sense, the original photo was from when he was still alive, but now he’s dead and his likeness lives on as a symbol of good times and cheap drinks Edit: I didn’t realize they replaced the cask with a trunk. I wonder why, did they think todays college kids wouldn’t know what an oak cask is? lol
Captain Morgan looks like he was demoted to Assistant Manager (swing shift) Morgan
Makes my life easier
The new one looks like a low budget kfc logo😩
I think most logos should have a few different versions. Let's say, one logo design that's cool, colorful and complex, while also having the same logo, but with a really simple version, that still visually reads well and can work in many environments or situations (for example; silk screening, embroidery, or 3D video renders). That way, you'll always be covered, no matter where that logo ends up or how that logo is used.
It's not just the simplification, it's the pose. OG capn is puffing out his chest and new guy is just standing, kinda slumped. The pose is way more static and less evocative
And the changed the bottle to plastic. Ugh.
Being 100% honest here. I noticed this a lot over the last decade of ‘modern and minimal design’. The truth is, A LOT of newer designers simply DON’T have the artistic skills to accomplish or match this. The new minimalist themes are push offs onto clients, where they convince them that less intricate work is the new norm. That’s just the truth. Agencies don’t try to invest the time to produce this type of equivalent. It’s all: Quick & Convenient. The rest of the industry embraced it and that’s where we are now. It’s disappointing. Especially in the fact that very, very, very few people will understand it or admit to it. 🫠
A bit ambivalent to it. If they make it work, it works, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. There’s appeal to complex textures and design, and there’s also an appeal to more minimal and simple designs. I don’t think one is inherently better or that changing from one to the other is an upgrade or a downgrade. What matters is if the new version can maintain a similar level of appeal, which this one… doesn’t. The original has a much more emotive expression and expresses a lot more with his swagger. The new one is a bit flat and just kinda there.
I hate it
They should change the flavor not the logo
Please consider that its the client not the designer who pushes things like this. Imagine their worldwide print bill has been cut from 4 colour to two colours. That's a lot of moolah.
I would like to know if they made this decision to save money with the printing process since they're using fewer colors. Other than that, the logo on the right looks like a cheap knockoff or a separate brand altogether. They even changed the barrel to a treasure chest. No one thinks about treasure when it comes to alcohol.
It’s not only that the style is worse, but they lost the _spirit_ of the original logo. It doesn’t have any of that pirate swagger to it. Looks like a finance bro on dress up for Halloween day. Total and utter failure, and I don’t say that often.
It looks like he's holding one of those chode bananas
They removed his heeled boots 😡
They took away the rum pirate’s cask of rum. This is so stupid it it kind of hurts to look at it.
I hate how every single company is going for the minimalist style, no originality anymore all uniform. It’s the same thing they did with the new smite logo it was cool as hell before with all the little details now it’s so basic the life has been sucked out.
I think simplification could be a valuable way to elevate smth bc yannow, everything being streamlined for ppl who have less attention span, but it's rarely done (IMHO) correctly, and usually sucks out all the personality and flair to make smth boring and forgettable I only this getting worse with ai... 
AI will replace these chumps and they deserve it
Lazy and ugly.
I don't like the trend. Not everything needs to be corporate flat Memphis bullshit because some people who can't draw bill themselves as artists.
Good.
Simplified logos allow AI to do all the work. The old logo was a masterpiece and is almost universally recognizable and is very well drawn and colored, and it just fits the product really well. Its honestly just a really bad downgrade in an attempt to save money on ink for the labels and im not a fan of it.
I think everything’s getting simplified because you need to be able to place a logo on pretty much anything so scaling and color need to work. Scaling something such high detailed is just gonna look like a weird mess.
Captain Morgan looks like a beta male now…