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| Coca Cola Logo Design and History |
The name “Coca-Cola” was a suggestion by John Pemberton’s bookkeeper, Frank Robinson. Frank Robinson also had great penmanship. He was the artist who created by hand the unique flowing script that became the powerful Coca-Cola logo that we all know today. Robinson also pressured Pemberton to engage in important advertising promotions, giving away thousands of free drink coupons and plastering Atlanta with publicity banners and streetcar signs to promote the brand. The (for those days) extravagant advertising budget paid off quickly, helping Coca-Cola to become the most popular local beverage brand. Coca-Cola is one of the most recognized brands and logos in the world.
The Coca-Cola script was designed by an amateur, Frank Robinson, the fledgling company's bookkeeper. He devised both the Spencerian script and the brilliantly concise words beneath: "Delicious and Refreshing." The bottle is among the most recognizable icons in the world, a design that has come to symbolize the youthful exuberance of America. Countless variations have been released over the decades, but the enduring classic is the curved vessel designed by the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana, and introduced in 1915. A Coca-Cola dispenser was later designed by Raymond Loewy. Coca-Cola History The first Coca-Cola recipe was invented in a drugstore in Columbus, Georgia by John Pemberton, originally as a cocawine called Pemberton's French Wine Coca in 1885. He may have been inspired by the formidable success of Vin Mariani, a European cocawine. In 1886, when Atlanta and Fulton County passed prohibition legislation, Pemberton responded by developing Coca-Cola, essentially a non-alcoholic version of French Wine Cola. The first sales were at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. It was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass at soda fountains, which were popular in the United States at the time due to the belief that carbonated water was good for the health. Pemberton claimed Coca-Cola cured many diseases, including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence. Pemberton ran the first advertisement for the beverage on May 29 of the same year in the Atlanta Journal. By 1888, three versions of Coca-Cola—sold by three separate businesses—were on the market. Asa Griggs Candler acquired a stake in Pemberton's company in 1887 and incorporated it as the Coca Cola Company in 1888. The same year, while suffering from an ongoing addiction to morphine, Pemberton sold the rights a second time to four more businessmen: J.C. Mayfield, A.O. Murphey, C.O. Mullahy and E.H. Bloodworth. Meanwhile, Pemberton's alcoholic[citation needed] son Charley Pemberton began selling his own version of the product. John Pemberton declared that the name "Coca-Cola" belonged to Charley, but the other two manufacturers could continue to use the formula. So, in the summer of 1888, Candler sold his beverage under the names Yum Yum and Koke. After both failed to catch on, Candler set out to establish a legal claim to Coca-Cola in late 1888, in order to force his two competitors out of the business. Candler purchased exclusive rights to the formula from John Pemberton, Margaret Dozier and Woolfolk Walker. However, in 1914, Dozier came forward to claim her signature on the bill of sale had been forged, and subsequent analysis has indicated John Pemberton's signature was most likely a forgery as well.
Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time on March 12, 1894. The first outdoor wall advertisement was painted in the same year as well in Cartersville, Georgia. Cans of Coke first appeared in 1955. The first bottling of Coca-Cola occurred in Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the Biedenharn Candy Company in 1891. Its proprietor was Joseph A. Biedenharn. The original bottles were Biedenharn bottles, very different from the much later hobble-skirt design that is now so familiar. Asa Candler was tentative about bottling the drink, but two entrepreneurs from Chattanooga, Tennessee, Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead, proposed the idea and were so persuasive that Candler signed a contract giving them control of the procedure for only one dollar. Candler never collected his dollar, but in 1899 Chattanooga became the site of the first Coca-Cola bottling company. The loosely termed contract proved to be problematic for the company for decades to come. Legal matters were not helped by the decision of the bottlers to subcontract to other companies, effectively becoming parent bottlers. Coke concentrate, or Coke syrup, was and is sold separately at pharmacies in small quantities, as an over-the-counter remedy for nausea or mildly upset stomach.
Design Elements of the Coca-Cola logo:The Coca-Cola logo, like the brand itself, is recognized globally. The characteristic design with a white swirl and a cursive style revives the youth spirit. Shape of the Coca-Cola logo: Color of the Coca-cola logo: Font of the Coca-Cola logo: |