125 years of Coca‑Cola design
Working with London’s Design Museum to celebrate the iconic design heritage of Coca‑Cola
As part of our birthday celebrations, we’ve scoured the Coca-Cola archives in Atlanta to bring together iconic pieces of design from our 125 year history. The collection of memorabilia is on display in a free exhibition at the Design Museum Tank in London until 3rd July, 2011.
Curated jointly by Ted Ryan, our Head of Coca-Cola Archives in Atlanta, and Design Museum curator Ria Hawthorn, the exhibition focuses on two icons of the Coca-Cola design: Our distinctive contour bottle and our logo, famed for its swirly Spencerian script.
Mummy blogger and vintage enthusiast, Bianca, visits our exhibition
The Tank displays a timeline of Coca-Cola bottles from across the decades, as well as rare pieces like a one-of-a-kind book from 1954 that outlines the design of the first Coca-Cola London Piccadilly sign. You can also get a glimpse of the can that was taken aboard Space Shuttle Challenger in 1985, making Coca-Cola the first soft drink consumed in space.
One of the oldest pieces on display is the porcelain Coca-Cola urn. In the 19th century, it was positioned in shops to dispense our unique Coca-Cola syrup, a formula that still remains top secret to this day.
More from Ted...
Ted Ryan shares his experience of putting together the Design Museum installation
"One of my duties managing the Coca-Cola Archives is to create exhibits for our associates and partners around the world. While I have been in this field - creating and curating exhibits - for almost 25 years now, the most recent exhibit we have opened with the London Design Museum is one of my favourites because the curatorial staff at the Design Museum challenged me to reinterpret some of the stories we have told for years. With this exhibit, every story had to be about design."
Read Ted’s blog on Coca-Cola’s advertising heritage.
