Pepsi’s 2023 Logo Redesign: Why the Brand Looked Back to Move Forward

Pepsi’s 2023 redesign was the brand’s first major update to its globe logo in 14 years. Rather than abandoning its history, Pepsi brought the wordmark back inside the globe, introduced a bolder type system, expanded its palette with electric blue and black, and built more motion into the wider visual identity. The result is a useful example of how an established brand can modernize without discarding the recognition it has already earned.

Pepsi introduced the redesign ahead of its 125th anniversary with a bold new logo and updated branding. PepsiCo's chief design officer Mauro Porcini described the identity as a way to connect the brand’s heritage with its future. Pepsi rolled the look out in North America in 2023 and expanded it across more than 120 markets in 2024.

What Changed in Pepsi’s 2023 Logo Redesign?

Pepsi's new logo reunites the PEPSI wordmark with the globe instead of placing the name beside it. The stronger black outline, heavier lettering, and higher-contrast palette make the mark feel closer to versions from the brand’s past while still giving it a more contemporary presence on packaging and screens.

The redesign also demonstrates why logo design should be considered as part of a larger system. A logo has to hold up on a can, a cooler, a social post, a digital animation, merchandise, signage, and other touchpoints. Pepsi’s update was designed with that range in mind rather than as a stand-alone symbol.

Why Pepsi Looked Back to Move Forward

The 2023 identity is deliberately nostalgic without simply restoring an old logo. PepsiCo said the design borrowed equity from the brand’s history, and the 2024 global rollout added a telling detail: when people were asked to draw the Pepsi logo, many placed the Pepsi name inside the globe even though the wordmark and globe had been separated for 14 years. That kind of remembered structure is exactly the type of evidence consumer research can surface before a company changes a familiar identity.

The design team used that recognition as a starting point. Instead of asking audiences to learn an entirely new symbol, Pepsi strengthened cues that were already associated with the brand and then updated the typography, colour, motion, and surrounding system for current media.

How the Visual System Works Beyond the Logo

The updated palette adds electric blue and black to Pepsi’s traditional red, white, and blue. Black also creates a stronger connection with Pepsi Zero Sugar, while the custom typeface gives the wordmark more weight and presence. These choices matter because a large consumer brand needs a system that remains recognizable across physical and digital environments.

Motion is another important part of the redesign. The Pepsi pulse extends the identity through animation, using rhythm and movement to connect the brand with music, sport, and other cultural settings. That gives Pepsi more than a static mark. It creates a repeatable visual behaviour that can appear in campaigns, digital content, retail experiences, and partnerships.

What the Previous Identity Taught Pepsi

The earlier version of this article spent a large section mocking the design rationale associated with Pepsi’s 2008 identity. A more useful lesson is to separate the quality of a logo from the complexity of the story used to explain it. The widely circulated design presentation became a talking point because it used elaborate geometric and cultural references to justify a comparatively simple mark.

For brands, the takeaway is not that a design should have no strategic reasoning. It is that the reasoning should be clear enough to guide decisions and useful enough to survive outside the presentation room. If a logo needs pages of explanation before people can understand what makes it distinctive, the system may be asking the rationale to do work the design itself should handle.

The 2023 redesign takes a more direct route. The wordmark is prominent, the globe is immediately recognizable, and the system uses colour and motion to add energy without requiring the audience to decode the logo itself.

Why the Pepsi Redesign Matters for Other Brands

The most useful lesson is that rebranding does not always require a clean break with the past. Pepsi’s redesign preserved familiar colour cues and the globe while changing how those assets are organized. It used heritage as raw material rather than as a reason to freeze the brand in place.

That distinction matters for companies deciding whether they need a logo update, a visual-identity refresh, or a broader strategic rebrand. Before changing a recognizable asset, teams should understand which parts of the current identity still carry useful memory and which parts are limiting the system. The decision is stronger when it comes from research and positioning rather than a desire to look newer.

The redesign also makes an interesting counterpoint to Coca-Cola’s more continuity-driven approach. Brand Vision’s Coca-Cola vs. PepsiCo marketing comparison looks at how the two companies use different levels of consistency and reinvention to stay recognizable.

Pepsi’s Logo Redesign in Perspective

Pepsi’s 2023 identity works as a case study because it changes a great deal without making the brand unrecognizable. The logo became bolder, the wordmark returned to the globe, black gained a larger role, and motion became part of the system. At the same time, the core red, white, and blue globe remained intact.

That balance is often the hardest part of an established-brand refresh. Change too little and the work can feel cosmetic. Change too much and the brand may discard recognition it spent years building. Pepsi’s solution was to use the past selectively, strengthen the most recognizable elements, and give those elements more flexibility across current media.

If your business is weighing a similar identity decision in South Florida, Brand Vision’s Miami branding agency can help determine whether the issue calls for a logo refinement, a wider visual refresh, or a full rebrand.