2010 Pepsi Logo: A Before-and-After Design Audit
A before-and-after audit of Pepsi’s late-2000s smile globe: what changed in the artwork, how to read vector files, and how trademark permission actually works.
Contents
The mark this audit covers
The subject is Pepsi’s globe-and-wordmark identity after the late-2000s restage—the version that appeared on cans, bottles, and advertising around 2008 through 2010. It is a trademarked brand mark, typically issued to agencies and packagers as vector artwork: the globe and lettering as paths, with raster previews for on-screen mockups. A before-and-after reading of that identity starts with generation (the older even-wave globe versus the later smile globe) and then asks what a given file actually contains: live paths, an embedded image, or a screen preview.
Before: the earlier globe
Through the 1990s and mid-2000s, the Pepsi globe was a circular disc in red, white, and blue. A white wave ran through the middle, relatively even in weight from left to right, with red in the upper field and blue in the lower. A 2003 refresh kept that geometry while tightening the drawing. In vector terms the older globe behaves like a classic circular device: a containing circle, a band, and two color fields. That structure is straightforward to inspect—and straightforward to trace—which is why unofficial copies of the earlier mark are common. Official use still depends on authorized artwork and trademark permission.
After: the smile globe of the 2008–2010 restage
The restaged globe pulled the white band into an asymmetric smile. Thickness gathers toward one side of the disc; the red and blue fields become unequal; the outline often sits slightly off a true circle. The wordmark was redrawn so the lettering sits with the new device. A long strategy narrative circulated with the launch and treated the smile as a geometric and cultural idea. Treat that narrative as brand positioning. Production files still come from issued artwork, and a positioning story is not a construction specification you can rebuild a faithful mark from.
Before and after, side by side
| Aspect | Earlier globe | Smile globe (2008–2010) |
| White band | Even wave, roughly symmetrical | Asymmetric smile, heavier on one side |
| Disc | Reads as a regular circle | Slightly off a true circle |
| Red and blue fields | More even split | Unequal fields shaped by the smile |
| Wordmark | Drawn for the older globe | Redrawn for the new lockup |
| What to inspect in a file | Circular paths and a balanced band | Unequal curves; a flattened band may be the wrong generation or a raster |
What the change means for vector artwork
For anyone handling files, the restage is a change in path character as much as a change in brand story. The smile is the silhouette to match. An even white band points to the previous generation, a hybrid drawing, or a weak tracing. Official artwork holds the smile as Bézier paths or equivalent vector outlines. A photograph of a can, a PNG, or a JPEG is a raster picture of the mark. An EPS, PDF, AI, or SVG container can still hold a placed image rather than live paths. You establish which you have by inspecting the objects inside the file.
- Match the generation first: smile versus even wave, then globe-only versus globe-plus-wordmark.
- Inspect objects rather than the extension: select the globe and see whether it is paths or a placed image.
- Use screen previews and screenshots for recognition only; resolution and color will not hold up in print.
- Build from issued paths. Grid stories and ratio diagrams that accompanied the launch are positioning, not a substitute for the official drawing.
- Treat the wordmark as custom lettering. A similar retail font is a stand-in, and it is a different asset from the official wordmark paths.
- Apply clear space and minimum size from an official kit when you have one. A single image is a poor source for inventing those rules.
Editable paths, embedded rasters, and previews
Editability is a property of the objects in the file. Outlined type can still be vector, with the letters converted to shapes and no longer live text. A raster image dropped into a vector wrapper remains pixels. A “logo pack” of transparent PNGs is a set of previews. Recoloring, scaling for signage, and placing the mark in a brand system all call for live paths from a source authorized to supply them. Tracing a raster preview produces a new drawing. That drawing is a separate artwork, and it leaves trademark and accuracy questions in place.
Download, modification, and trademark use
Obtaining a file is a separate matter from the right to modify the artwork, apply the Pepsi name or globe to goods or services, or redistribute the mark. The globe, the wordmark, and the Pepsi name are trademarks. Licensed packaging, co-branded promotions, and agency work typically receive artwork under brand-control terms that limit redrawing, recoloring, and lockup. Unofficial copies on the open web frequently mix generations, crop the disc, or flatten the smile. A technically clean path file remains trademarked artwork.
What this audit cannot confirm
No official 2010-era brand kit is in evidence here. This assessment therefore cannot confirm path construction, drawing order, spot or process color formulas, minimum reproduction size, or clear-space measures, and it cannot certify that any particular third-party file matches approved art. It also cannot confirm whether type inside a given file is live, outlined, or a substitute font. Those facts belong to the issued artwork and its guidelines. Until that kit is in hand, visual identification of the smile globe is a recognition task, and production use is a rights-and-source task.