My new drugs are so ugly

New drug packaging

 Ok this is totally off the topic of dog art however, can someone tell me what is up with the drug companies and why have they fired the real packaging designers? Last week I had to go get some Benadryl because Ajax got stung by a bug of some sort. I go to the store and find some horrible bright pink package that looks like it must be a fake, right? Surely someone has sold the drug store some pirated imitation drug or something. I buy it anyway and come home to look on-line and sure enough the packaging has changed. If you check out the old package below you will see that although the goofy beveled logo weenie is very 1980's at least they were trying to make an all text product interesting, you have  a lovely soft gradient thing happening in the white area. The navy on the old box is much more pleasing than the cheap bright blue on the new box. I know the weenie text boxes have been over-used for 2 decades now in graphic design, but there must be a better alternative than shocking bright pink & blue. Besides ... when your product is sort of a pill and sorta pill shaped, what is wrong with text boxes that are pill shaped?

So today I go to the store to get a cough suppressant for Dan, he is still battling a very old cold. I notice the same thing has happened with Robitussin, the new package design is very flat. They did give us a bit of  a drop shadow in one text area, but overall ...very ugly. I like the classy stripes on the older box shown below. Again the 1980's weenie text box has been ditched on the newer box. Look at the simplicity of the older box though: Robitussin Cough DM ... those were the only 3 words I needed to find this on the drug aisle. Instead of those 3 simple words I had to read about mucus, peak cold, and the pink droplet on the newer box reminded me that this stuff is going to taste horrible.

I know this is a very off-topic rant, but I have been noticing for the last year or so that graphic design on billboards and all advertising in general is getting less and less attractive. I am a weirdo and I love advertising when it is done well. I know what is happening, the big wigs are ready to ditch the over-used design gimmicks like drop shadows, weenie text boxes, glow, gradients and so on but they really do not have a plan for what should replace those effects. Ok tomorrow I will get back to posting more dog art ... maybe a Doxie ... you thought I was going to say weenie again didn't you?