Coca-Cola has been given a complete design overhaul by Jones Knowles Ritchie, amplifying the brand's most iconic assets. The brief was simple: "Make Coca-Cola more Coca-Cola." This meant bringing stronger consistency across 200 markets and creating a cohesive multimedia ecosystem flexible enough to work seamlessly across packaging, retail, digital environments, and equipment.
It is no mean feat to update a brand that is instantly recognisable by its signature shade of red or a mere fragment of typography. In practice, that challenge meant drawing on some of the world's strongest branding elements to make them even more impactful. JKR focused on modernising the classic red and white palette, the Dynamic Ribbon, the Arden Square, and the Spencerian script, ensuring they stand out more prominently across every consumer touchpoint.
"Coca-Cola is one of the most recognised brands in the world, and with that comes a responsibility to keep evolving” said Arnab Roy, President, Coca-Cola Global Category. “This refresh is about being clearer and more consistent in how we show up, wherever people experience our brand. By building on the things people already know and love, we're creating a stronger foundation for growth while staying unmistakably Coca-Cola."
JKR is known for its standout evolution work with heritage brands so this mammoth task was perfectly suited to the agency – but how did they go about approaching the project? And why did Coca-Cola want to evolve the brand right now?
I talked to Rapha Abreu, Global Vice President, Design at The Coca-Cola Company, Tosh Hall, Global Chief Creative Officer at JKR and Dave Balsamello, Creative Director at JKR to find out more about the project.
Rapha Abreu, Global Vice President, Design at The Coca-Cola Company
Why did you want to evolve the brand when it’s already so impactful?
The strongest, enduring brands never stand still. They evolve carefully so they remain both timeless and timely.
Our job wasn’t to change what people love about Coca-Cola. It was to protect it, celebrate it and prepare it for the future. As consumer expectations, technology and media continue to evolve, the brand has to perform across more touchpoints than ever before while remaining instantly recognisable and memorable.
That’s why we focused on strengthening the assets people already know by heart. We wanted Coca-Cola to feel even more iconic today while ensuring it remains just as iconic for the next generation.
What was most important to you about the redesign - what did you ask JKR to retain in the brief? And what did you want to bring in that was new?
The brief was surprisingly simple: make Coca-Cola more Coca-Cola, everywhere.
From the beginning, we knew we wanted to preserve and elevate the assets that define the brand: the Spencerian Script, the Dynamic Ribbon, our iconic red and white palette, and always putting the product at the centre.
What’s new isn’t a new logo or a completely different visual language. It’s a more expressive, more cohesive design system that works across packaging, retail, digital, motion, photography, equipment and experiences. We created a system that gives every touchpoint the same unmistakably Coca-Cola feeling while being flexible enough to live across more than 200 markets.
Did the design end as you thought it would? Any surprises along the way?
What surprised me most wasn’t a particular design element. It was the sheer scale of what we were creating.
It’s a more expressive, more cohesive design system.
Rapha Abreu
We initiated the work on packaging with The SUPERULTRARARE team, but we always knew it had to become something much more expansive. Coca-Cola lives across thousands of physical and digital touchpoints, so every design decision had implications far beyond the pack itself.
In the end, we didn’t just create a new visual identity. We built a comprehensive design system that spans packaging, photography, motion, typography, retail, equipment, digital experiences, Brand Center and digital Design Intelligence. Seeing all of those pieces come together into one cohesive ecosystem is what makes this body of work so powerful.
What do you want consumers to feel when they see the updated brand identity?
First and foremost, I hope it simply feels like Coca-Cola. It should feel familiar because it’s built on the symbols people have loved for generations, but also fresher, more confident and more expressive. The design is clearer, the product is more celebrated, and our iconic assets have greater presence across every touchpoint.
Ultimately, our ambition is to deliver an uncompromised Coca-Cola brand experience. No matter where someone encounters Coca-Cola – on a shelf, on a phone, in retail or at an event, and no matter which Coca-Cola they choose – it should immediately look and feel like the icon they know and love.
By strengthening the brand’s most distinctive assets today, we’re ensuring Coca-Cola remains as iconic for the next generation as it has been for the last. That’s what “making Coca-Cola more Coca-Cola” is really about.
Tosh Hall, Global Chief Creative Officer at JKR
“Make Coca Cola more Coca Cola”. How do you go about making something already so ‘itself’ more ‘itself’?
Close your eyes and think about Coca-Cola. The reality might not be what you imagine.
When you're 140 years old, operating across every market and every touchpoint, small inconsistencies creep in.There’s a tendency for the brand in people's heads and the brand as it actually exists to drift apart.
Close your eyes and think about Coca-Cola. The reality might not be what you imagine.
Our job wasn't to change what Coca-Cola means to people, it was to close that gap.
So "more Coca-Cola" means finding the most distinctive version of every element and making sure it shows up with that same clarity and confidence everywhere, every time.
When designing an evolution for a heritage brand, do you follow the same steps every time?
While our approach can be similar, the insight and solution are always different and unique to each brand's challenge.
Whether it's a tech brand that's 30 years old or an iconic brand like Coca-Cola that's 140 years old, we always start in the same place: uncover what makes them who they are.
We then identify the business challenges within the brief, taking what's distinctive about the brand to solve the problem at hand. It’s all about ensuring the brand's legacy can evolve and stay relevant for today and tomorrow.
Dave Balsamello, Creative Director at JKR
It doesn’t get much bigger than Coca Cola’s visual identity. What was your starting point? Were there elements of the brand you knew you wanted to amplify from the start?
The starting point was definitely its legacy. Coca-Cola has spent 140 years pushing design, advertising, and branding forward in culture. So we spent a lot of time looking back and thinking about why that work made sense at that moment, asking ourselves: What made it special? What was going on in the world at that time? Where was the business? And identifying all the subtleties that make Coca-Cola so instantly recognisable.
We took the identity apart, iconic element by iconic element, and stress tested everything
One of the biggest sources of inspiration was this investor book from the '70s, when the Arden Square and the Dynamic Ribbon were introduced. The ribbon especially was something that stood out. It's an iconic asset that instantly feels uplifting. It felt like one of the brand's strongest signatures, especially since the book itself was published at a moment when the brand became a global icon. That made it feel incredibly relevant again today, as we're designing Coca-Cola for a world with more screens, more surfaces, and more people interacting with it than ever before.
How do you go about designing for a product range that sits under a single iconic identity?
A lot of exploration. A lot of pulling on threads. Seeing how far an idea could go, then editing it back. Understanding all the constraints, from local to global, to how it flexes for different seasons, to all the different ideas teams need to communicate in an instant.
We took the identity apart, iconic element by iconic element, and stress tested everything. How large can the Script become? How tightly can you crop the Ribbon? How small can an asset get? How much can the color change? What's the right Coca-Cola red? At what point does it stop being recognizable, if it ever does?
It was through that process that we really understood just how many possibilities there are in the Arden Square. It is incredibly simple, but it can be both timeless and act super timely.
What do you want consumers to feel when they see the updated brand identity? Was the outcome what you imagined it would be?
The dream is that they just think: Coca-Cola. And then they want one.
For more stellar branding work, see the best rebrands of the 2020s (so far).
