The Design of Common Beverages

This article is a longer version of a smaller article from the author's Medium account.

The Design of Beverage

by Jay Chauncey

The way that we naturally prepare or package beverages reveal more about what we’re drinking than the name of the drink itself.

More often than not, the branding design of a beverage emerges out of the first principles of the way people have prepared some of these drinks throughout the ages. Other drinks receive their design from particular color schemes and container shapes. To test your knowledge, look at the graphic above. Can you name all of these beverages based on the cup, glass, or bottle? I’m sure you can name a few. Also, think about the natural way in which the beverage communicates with its colors, bubbles, and other idiosyncrasies, such as how it fills up a glass.

The conventional cup for carrying hot drinks was not always as ubiquitous as today. That is, until well after the sleeve was invented by Jay Sorensen in the early 1990s. The sleeve is used for an extra layer to grab the cup when it is hot. Consider that the sleeve is suggestive of the temperature inside the container and how it attracts people to purchase the beverage.

Meanwhile, cola beverages often use the same colors, from generic brands, to Stevia-based alternatives. Pepsi originally used blue to make it stand out from a rival company that used red. Blue cans almost always resonate with being some sort of cola beverage. The idea of red, white and blue converge to identify cola as the All-American beverage. Cola was invented in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1886 by Dr. John Pemberton.

Who could forget about the world's most naturally-replenishing resource? Bottled water has settled on a typical bottle shape for decades. Usually, a clear bottle with a plastic sleeve at the top. Even though water is a compound that provides the hydrating foundation of all organisms, it markets itself as a commodity with its transparency.

Root beer is a non-alcoholic drink was at times fermented in the early days, and now known for its naturally dark brown color and foam that resonates the herbs that it is brewed with, such as sarsaparilla. It is typically consumed within a big glass mug.

Beer is an alcoholic drink is also known for its foam, which sits confidently on top of a brisk, straw, gold, or brown liquid. Although beer was once made with a variety of different spices that most people would not be familiar with today, it is typically maintained its current form as being brewed using hops.

A latte is a hot drink made with steamed milk that foams on top, and often made into a design. It is an instantly recognizable with is hot mug and a white, milky image that floats atop the steamed drink.

A very fine powder made from the leaves of the tea plant is used to make matcha tea, which is traditionally mixed with milk using a whisk. It is an increasingly trendy drink that began in ancient Japan. The whisk has become symbolic of the drink itself, more so than the finished brew.

Speaking of tea, we all instantly recognize a glass of iced tea, sweet or unsweetened. Sweet Iced Tea has been a staple beverage in the American South since the 1870s. It is the cold version of a drink that has made quite a voyage from the East, to the United Kingdom, whose citizens used to be disgusted at this particular American preparation of iced tea … often fused with a slice of lemon. It is typical for people in the UK to consume this drink hot, with milk and sugar. Iced tea's aesthetics are often emphasized by being drank out of a tall glass with as many ice cubes as possible.

Kombucha is a drink that made its way to the West from China, and is becoming increasingly popular in the United States. It is made by fermenting a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (called a SCOBY) with the infusion of a plant made from tea. These drinks, when made at home, are often made in mason jars.

You may be surprised to learn that the smoothie was actually inspired by Brazilian pureed drinks. These drinks made their way to the West Coast in the early Twentieth Century. The drink is most commonly made by mixing berries, juice or milk, and sometimes adding green leafy vegetables. Because of this, they often contain very rich colors made from the pigments of these vegetables and sweet fruits that are used to blend. It is most often consumed in a clear glass with a straw.