ENTER THE VOID; OF DESIGN PRESENTATION LAND~~

For my design presentation I thought I could do a nice comparison between the beauty and refined design of Monster Energy drinks versus that of it's "yee-haw" competitors Rockstar and Full Throttle (Red Bull is a niche category). Either that or a story of my chinese remote control light bulbs versus the Phillips and LIFX iphone app controlled brands....however to prevent the whole world from falling asleep....

 

So here we are, talking about energy drinks, so what? 

Well, the design of these monster cans used to be ascetically between "meh" and "who gives a damn".

       But I suppose the marketing and design stepped up in recent years to the point where I will actually be seen buying these otherwise terrible tasting drinks from time to time. The problem is I've been burned so many times from phrases like "nearly edible" and "trust me, it tastes like coconut" to the point that when I saw these cans I just wrote them off and went for the 10lb can of sugar known as AMP, which so stylishly looked like everything I ever wanted in a neon can of lemonade cherry or whatever was in the other cans.

Coconut Water Rockstar, beautiful design, tastes like sour socks

Safe, reliable, colorful, no surprises. Like James Cameron films in canned form.(cans even have an alien form from the "A" in amp... )

       So the designs range from black and blue cans of terrible taste with Rockstar to a whole lineup of sleek,reflective,streamlined, neon cans of Amp (although my head hurts everytime I see those conflicting fonts....). You know, nothing special aside from stark similarity of one product to the other and all that.

      Once again you may ask, "why did I read this far into this junk?" well I don't see you doing a better analysis of canned soda now do I? That's what I thought. I get it, this is a little too indepth but I'll summarize.

       I remember I was at a baseball game the day I decided to give up on energy drinks that tasted "good" as I slurped down a green Monster energy drink, only to discover it tasted terrible somehow when mere weeks ago I loved the taste or flavor. I wrote that product off the face of the earth, until one morning three years later I stumbled across such a stange can at my convenience store...

Game changer for my hatred of energy.

      Here it was, a bright red can with Russian font on the front literally saying "Russian". "What the hell is this and what does Russia taste like when canned?" I asked myself. It didnt stop there however. I turn it over...

Yep hammer, sickle and all

This is literally the design of the Kremlin on a soda can, with a Soviet Era Flag. Me being a collector of Soviet Memorabilia I threw the two dollars at the cashiers face and gave it a swig.
Absolutely delicious. If it were just the boring everyday label I may have missed it entirely, White Russian Coffee? Outstanding. The can with its perfectly themed red and gold with dark,bleak-black shadowing and etching just made it seem like these cans were forged by Khrushchev himself in-between missile tests.

The design is what brought me back to great flavor and just an absolutely regal design worth displaying like a fine bottle of scotch. Oh sure, it has those tacky claw marks and the text is not in keeping with what could match a better Russian Sans-Serif approach, but it's their brand and I'll let it slide. Similar to another in terms of the claws and the name, none-else.

If you want a flagship for similarity

Dont even get me started on these things!

look no further. This can (right)
 literally could be 99% away
 from the original and yet
with the subtle dots on the
can(to imply condensation
from a carribean embargo-style
country) along with a picture
of a lime on the side, you drop
everything and buy two.
Cuba-Lima? Yes please. Seriously though, side note; buy at least one and try it.

 So now that I've established this tour-de-fource Id just like to show you what Monster has to compete with in the market.

  Either you get the motorcycle oil cans so trashy they are thrown away at the end of rodeos....

...Or you get a green,red and yellow can with zero caffeine and the hidden ability to make you look like you're in-between joints of weed and hoped "this would tie me over".  But no, you just bought tea in a rasta themed can and you paid top dollar for that watered down-tea. No officer, Im a perfectly normal law-abiding-citizen. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to finish off this caffeine free energy drink...made by an energy drink company.