Eco Coke Bottle

Showcase projects
1

Hey guys, I just wanted to share my midterm project for my freshman studio class @ CCS. The objective was to create something eco-friendly, and I chose to redesign the bottles used by CocaCola. Thanks for looking!

*Note: The presentation will not flow so smoothly as these images were intended to be hung on the wall. This is also why the design process is missing - we just hung up the sketches.

Renders / Graphics: Adobe Photoshop
Mock-Up: dense foam

Past projects available on my blog for those interested: http://designfabulous.blogspot.com/

2

Nice work. Well done presentation.

As far as the bottle design goes, I think a blow molder would recommend adding some fillets to the sharp corners. Sharp corners aren’t good practice in blow molding. Just a little real-world critique…

Keep up the nice work.

3

nice project. I’d buy a square coke.

Also, those carbonated soda bottles need to be rated at a very high psi level so they don’t burst. Hence the typical round-ish shape. Better distribution of pressure. If this were under production scrutiny, the relatively tight corners would certainly be an issue.

4

You have some nice ideas and a good presentation.

Since 1916 the coke bottle has had the s3xy curvaceous design that is one of the most iconic bottles in history. I think you missed the whole point of the coke bottle with this one. There is no reference to the coke bottle with the exception of the colors and the logo. With the bottle being such a huge design element for the company you really need to pay homage to it somehow.

5

I will start off by saying as always you have done some spectacular work, but I am going to have to agree with Ross here. We already know that your skill set is high so I am going to challenge your design thinking and your strategy. The Coke bottle is what makes Coke, Coke. It is not the logo, the colors, or any other part of the branding. So my question to you is, what makes this square bottle Coke? Now because the bottle is square does not mean that it cannot be a coke bottle. That sexy look could be done through a simple silhouette of the old classic bottle in the graphics or some other element.

I would encourage you to think past the shape and the structure when designing products, especially packaging, and even more when it is such an iconic brand such as this. Think about the history of the brand and what it means. Think about the usage of the package. Look at the ads and what the personality of the brand is. You did a great job of attacking the recycling, shipping and the need state for better green packaging, but you missed the brand part which is very, very important.

6

First, very nice presentation everything is very crisp and well laid out, and your images are great.

But… I need to play devils advocate and ask why did you choose the Coke bottle redesign? It seems that your solution focuses almost entirely on the issues of shipping the product. This is where your thinking starts to lose me; since the beverage industry’s shipping is fairly efficient. A long time ago companies like Pepsi and Coke realized is was silly to ship sugar and water long distances; so they just shipped the recipe instead of the actual product. Most carbonated beverages are produced by regional bottlers all across the country and world. This means less shipping and fresher product. The same is true of other industries too; take cars for example, where more and more Japanese and German cars are made in the US.

I would be interested to know if you found any info on the average distance a Coke travels before its in the consumers hand. I find it hard to imagine that much Coke gets shipped via cargo ship, but hey I could be wrong, its just what popped into my head when I looked at the project. It just seems to me that there may be bigger issues than shipping though.

7

Yeah, recently they even changed the boring 2 liter bottle into the classic Coke bottle design:

8

Somehow I feel that some of the critics above were to fast or didn´t watch closely
enough. Wasn’t it the “curve” that you implemented in a 3 Dimensional way to
harken back to the sculptural traditional coke bottle?

One can’t have the cake and eat it. The reduction in shipping and storage must be most
impressive. We are doing something similar for industrial goods right know and customers
love the overall effect on economy.

I feel that your concept above is absolutely clever, but perhaps a little bit too advanced in the
way of abstracting the core features of the coke bottle.

Thumbs up from me, though !

yours mo-i

9

I’m with mo-i on this one.

As a small tangent, a big part of a “portfolio” level project is to 1) be memorable (provocative) and 2) demonstrate a thought process

I think this project does both of these!

One thing I love about these boards is that a young student can get some very good feedback from experienced folks. One_Word’s and Brett’s feedback about the radii is al too true. Knowing that, what changes would you make? How would it effect the design?

To Dubya’s point, I grew up near a Pepsi bottling plant and I was always fascinated by how they had worked out to just ship the syrup (too the bottling plant and to fast food chains) and then licensed out the ability to mix the final product. It is really pretty cool… now that you know that, is there anything you might change?

10

For me, this is one of those projects, where immediately I start finding things I can pick on. It doesn’t feel completely thought out or rationalized. You are a strong designer, so I’ll be picky.

A few things-

  1. Branding. I think Ross/Justin hit it on the head. Coke has huge brand power in part because of the bottle shape. It’s a shame to see that not even acknowledged here even in some sort of graphics treatment. I think you kinda shot yourself in the foot by picking coke to start with. This bottle project could have been done for Pepsi, Water, anything but coke and you’d have the same result and a stronger project. In any case the execution of the coke graphics also feels not that innovative. It’s the same solid red and white swoosh as was recently done for coke, no? The project seems like it should be at least 50% graphics and seems you didn’t really tackle that at all.

  2. offset top. For easier drinking? How is this? I think it would certainly be more awkward as you need to be sure to grip it on the “right” side. Did you test this at all. Doesn’t pas the smell test.

  3. footprint. You mention that the footprint is smaller so takes up less space. True, but it is also taller. You should be comparing volumes, not footprint. Overlooking this makes me feel you didn’t do a proper analysis elsewhere.

  4. volume. speaking of volume (which is the only thing that matters), have a look at the curvy coke bottle pic posted in your board above. there actually is very little wasted space if you look at the negative space. maybe the problem is not such a problem?

  5. stacking. I like this idea, but you have to increase the volume (hole) in the bottom to do it. maybe not so efficient?

  6. differentiation. There are currently other square PET bottles, no? I think Fiji water has one. What’s the differentiation or innovation here?

R

11

I think this is a great project, with a great presentation. As noted above, maybe CocaCola wasn’t the best choice due to branding.

You clearly showed in several pages that the bottle is the same height as the original but with a smaller footprint to take up less space and with the minor stack/nest it also lowers the overall height which I think is another plus. I think you put together a nice project that was focused on being eco-friendly even with some flaws noted by other boardies.

12

Love it! Looks much more advanced than a freshman project (what ever happened to foundations year?)

It’s true that Coke isn’t shipped on container ships, but they are shipped from the local bottler to the stores, and gas is consumed in that process. But even then, those trips probably don’t include full trucks since they are basically just replenishing stock, so saving space may not save gas. I’m not sure. Definitely worth doing some research and systems design mapping.

There may be other benefits though, such as efficiently getting more water to disaster areas faster. Or requiring fewer refrigerators at the store for the same volume of product. Or more local storage requiring fewer replenishing trips.

And there are certainly other bottled products that are shipped, like shampoo, that could benefit from the space-efficiency.

13

Wow, thank you everyone for the responses, this is exactly why I think this is such a great community. I am getting lots of opinions that I didn’t get from school. I’ll try to briefly reply to everyone in one comment.

one-word-plastics, Brett_nyc, yeah I do realize that the corners are too sharp. I was wanting to round them off but due to the tight schedule of the project, I ended up having to go with this specific design.

Ross McCoy, PackageID, Dubya, I do agree with your comments on the “impossibility” of Coke actually changing their design to something like mine. But as mo-i pointed out, I did try to implement the Coke “curve” into the bottle by creating the “sculpted curve” that also acts as a structural support element. Everyone was skeptical with my designing a coke bottle, as it is like saying that one will redesign the Apple logo. Doing something like Pepsi with a much less iconic design would have been much more easy but I wanted to see how well I could take on this impossible task. And since it’s just a midway freshman project and my professor showed no dissatisfaction, I decided to have some fun.

rkuchinsky, the bottle has a smaller footprint but the height of the bottles are nearly identical. The square bottle recovers the edges that can hold more liquid so the square bottle consumes a smaller space (volume) while holding the same amount of liquid.

And everyone, I also did not know about the exact shipping/bottling process of the Cocacola company. If I had more time to do the research, I am sure that it’s something that I would have found but I really have no excuse for this.

Well thanks for the interest everyone!

14

I think its cool that you chose Coca Cola. People have very strong opinions of what it should look like, so it gets a bit provoking but imo, in a good way! Of course there might be better ways to incorporate the coke brand in to the design, but thats an entire project on its own. I’m sure you have some great ideas of it already though.

Also, the presentation is great, super easy to understand by just going through it reasonably quick without loosing the thread.

Regarding the foldability, I want one so i can put it in my messenger without liquid in it, and use it on different occasions when I’m dehydrated.

15

Ray Lowey’s rolling over.

16

I sense a bit of cockiness in your post. Like we mentioned before, we see the talent and know that you have strong fundamental skills, and because of this you are going to get critique harder than others. With that said you are still a young designer and have plenty to learn. Blowing off the critique will not get you anywhere.

Okay you have three different points here so I am going to address them separately.


1)

one-word-plastics, Brett_nyc> , yeah I do realize that the corners are too sharp. I was wanting to round them off but due to the tight schedule of the project, I ended up having to go with this specific design.

You are always going to hit tight schedules. Cutting corners because you did not have time is not an excuse. If you knew this was an issue then you should have designed around it. If not then take the feedback and use it for your next design.

)> Ross McCoy, PackageID, Dubya, > I do agree with your comments on the “impossibility” of Coke actually changing their design to something like mine. But as > mo-i > pointed out, I did try to implement the Coke “curve” into the bottle by creating the “sculpted curve” that also acts as a structural support element. Everyone was skeptical with my designing a coke bottle, as it is like saying that one will redesign the Apple logo. Doing something like Pepsi with a much less iconic design would have been much more easy but I wanted to see how well I could take on this impossible task. And since it’s just a midway freshman project and my professor showed no dissatisfaction, I decided to have some fun.

As a branding and packaging designer myself this really bothers me. In this project you showed that you do not understand branding nor did you do any research on the brand. This is one of the most iconic brands in the world. Much larger than the Apple logo. By doing research on the brand and understanding it you would have seen that a square shape does not work for Coke at all. Putting the Coke “curve” on the bottle does not make it Coke. You have to remember than ID is not only about creating a cool product, but understanding your user and in this case understanding the history behind the product. I like to say that a lot of time we do more research than anything else. Research is crucial to a winning design. Don’t cut corners on this, trust me any trained designer will be able to tell.

And everyone, I also did not know about the exact shipping/bottling process of the Cocacola company. If I had more time to do the research, I am sure that it’s something that I would have found but I really have no excuse for this.

Same as above. If you are going to call your product out as saving the planet than you need to know their shipping process and the manufacturing process of the bottle. Both 2 and 3 would have been no more than a 2-3 hours worth of research.

Once again, I am being a tougher on you because I have seen your work as a high school kid. You know what you are doing and you have a much higher skill set than you classmates. Just because your Prof shows no dissatisfaction or your classmate are doing one thing does not mean that you should not be pushing yourself. The project was great, your presentation was great, but I do not think that any of what you are reading is new news to you.

17

PackageID, I don’t know why you took offense in my comment. For (1), I agreed with the criticism, I didn’t say that I disagree with the the fellow members and just stated why I ended up with the design that I have right now.

Maybe a better reply would have been: “one-word-plastics, Brett_nyc, thanks for the information, I will take that into consideration for next time.”

And for (2),(3), I also agreed with the things you and others have said. I feel that I have clearly expressed that the lack of knowledge in the shipping process. I feel that I didn’t argue with the comments and just showed how I got here. I am sorry if you feel that I am blowing of the critiques but I feel that posting the reason for the result is not a sign of that. Additionally, I do agree that I could have pushed myself more but this project but I would like to say that it is actually an even smaller of a project than what I have done. The final deliverables were a marker rendering and a paper mockup - so I guess I don’t want you to think that I’m being lazy.

I am largely confused by your response because I found the feedback to be valuable and I think there was a misunderstanding as I am taking everything that was commented into my toolbox. I don’t know if the other members also felt that my comments were of a disregarding light but I want to say that they weren’t, and I tried to thank everyone of the great constructive support.

18

Sorry no offense taken. The beauty and down fall of the internet is things can be read many different ways. Like you mentioned, file all of this feedback away. It will only make you stronger.

19

Thanks, I just wanted everyone and you to know that I am thankful for the feedback, after-all, I could just as easily not post anything, I’m posting so that I can get a more varied influence and help.

20

Just wanted to say I didn’t read into your reply the same thing that Justin did. I thought you took the feedback well. Maybe Justin had a bad day fighting with marketing? :wink:

R