The story of Coca-Cola's vibrant red logo
For many of you, the sheer name Coca-Cola is a bottle of bubbling joy. This aerated beverage has been ruling billion hearts through centuries. The success story of this brand is all too visible. But the journey of the vibrant red logo that seems inseparable with Coca-Cola isn’t known to many of you.
Why was red chosen as the brand colour?
Why this soft drink brand chose red for its logo has often been a topic of debate. However, most believe that it was a tribute to the company’s first ever advertisement featuring Santa Claus (wearing his distinguished red and white suit and holding a bottle of Coca-Cola!). But over the years, the brand has discredited this story and has come up with its own version.
Right after its inception, Coca-Cola started being sold in barrels at all American stores. But there was a slight problem. Alcohol was sold in a similar fashion too. In order to avoid confusion, the brand decided to paint its barrels red, giving it a unique look. Later, Coca-Cola adopted red as the official colour and has stuck with it till date.
The birth of brand Coca-Cola
Most of you have grown up loving the taste of Coca-Cola, but few of you probably know the ingredients of this widely popular sugary soft drink. Its formula or recipe, conceived by American pharmacist and optometrist John Stith Pemberton in 1886, included two main ingredients: coca leaf extract and caffeine extract from kola nuts. It is these components that the brand derived its name from. The name that was conceived initially was Coca Kola. However, Frank Robinson, the accountant of Pemberton, who was assisting him in building the business, came up with a brilliant idea, that gave the brand its name: Coca-Cola. Robinson, who was also a skilled writer, realised that using a pair of Cs would look more appealing, from the advertising point of view. This is when, kola became cola.
Quick fact: Though Pemberton was the man behind the one-of-its kind taste of Coca-Cola, the man who turned it into a successful business, was Asa Griggs Candler. In 1887 he purchased the formula of this sugary drink from Pemberton.
The iconic logo: Origin and evolution
The swirly, cursive style of the iconic Coca-Cola logo, as we see it today, was also the brainchild of Robinson, who scripted it using a slightly modified version of the Spencerian script. This oval-shaped style of penmanship was developed in 1840 by New-York born Platt Rogers Spencer. This logo started being officially used since 1887. The first version of the Coca-Cola logo, was, however, created in 1886 using typographical serif capital letters.
The font style of Coca-Cola has remained virtually unchanged since 1887 except for a brief one-year window in 1890. In this year, the logo got a makeover with an additional decorative swirl and hanging notes. But Coca-Cola went back to its original design after a year.
Though the script style of this world-famous brand remained more or less the same with minor tweaks, the colour went through quite a few revisions. When Robinson originally created the logo, Coca-Cola was written in black on a white background. In 1947, a vibrant red disc was introduced to advertise this brand where Coca-Cola was written in white. Here are a few other landmarks in the evolution of this brand’s logo.
1958: This year, the brand name was placed inside a red arch-like shape, technically called Arciform shape.
1969: The Coca-Cola brand name was seen in a red box, underlined by a wavy, single white ribbon.
2003: Cola-Cola Real campaign kicked off and the white ribbon was enhanced with more ribbons and a splash of yellow as well as bubbles.
2007: This time a classic design was reintroduced and the brand replaced multiple ribbons with a single white one, keeping it simple yet bold.
2011: On the brand’s 125th anniversary, Coca-Cola came up with a unique logo design that showed bubbles bursting out of a contour bottle. This was a celebration of the past, present as well as the future.