Makeovers that aren’t extreme, just pointless

Not to beat a dead-horse about Eight O’Clock coffee, but it was nice to see it get some press this week and beat out Starbucks. But what drove me to buy it in the first place a couple odd years ago was not the fact that it was getting lots of accolades (it wasn’t) but that it had the coolest package among the cheap coffees.

Packages of Eight O’Clock coffee look retro — not in a forced way but in an organic way, as if that’s just the way the package has always looked. In fact, the colors and style have been updated slightly over the past 50 years but the packaging essentially has the same themes.

It’s a cool, timeless design. So naturally the company is trying to change it. Eight O’Clock coffee is running a packaging makeover Web site, asking users to pick between two finalists. After signing your life over, you get to pick between these two choices.