Sound Drinks partnered with Redscout to create a brand identity that would help them become the beverage of choice for a new wave of customers.

As a grounding element, Redscout selected Raisonné by Colophon Foundry to complement the tessellating waves of color that span across the packaging. Its structure and subtle playfulness bring clarity and character, creating a typographic voice that feels confident, clear, and approachable.

The futuristic DOSS Exaflop by Marc Rouault was seen on a can at this year’s Wire Festival. PURE° X-TRACT is a sparkling water brand designed for culturally aware, intentional consumers—particularly those drawn to nightlife settings but not necessarily to alcohol. With a focus on globally inspired, sophisticated flavors, PURE blends clean design with sensory depth. The drink comes in three flavors: Pure, Pandan, and Calamansi. All variants are sugar-free and have zero calories, emphasizing purity and taste without additives.

DOSS Exaflop is paired with a yet unidentified monospaced sans [edit: it’s ABC ROM Mono, see comments] on the cans and with Syne on the website.

Photography by Tyler Mariano

Flip is a newly-born brand of canned flavored waters, made in Switzerland. It adopts a fun, “I’m not a soda” communication directed towards soda-addicted / water-bored adults.

The logo sports NaN Fiasco in its blackest weight, showing the /fl ligature with its misaligned stem. The font is also re-used for headlines, in all caps, on their website. GT Maru is used everywhere else, in its medium weight. The duo of the black glitchy geometric sans and slightly-bold rounded sans make for a very friendly typographic palette, almost childish and leaning in the direction of the candy company Haribo. But the use of a subtle colour palette and of flat colors brings the language back to a more serious and adult realm.

Nixie is a zero calorie, zero sugar beverage brand. It uses Around A alongside Area. The logo is probably custom. The script used for some of the flavor names and the condensed sans on the cans are unidentified.

Founded by Nicole Dawes in 2019, Nixie’s declared mission is to “eliminate sugar, single-use plastic bottles, and toxic forever-chemicals”.

Booch was one of the first successful commercial kombuchas to launch in Ontario, Canada.

As the company has grown, the owner has remained true to her original philosophy of staying grounded, being highly collaborative with local partners, and to create a sustainable beverage company.

Aligned with this mission, she noticed that the lemongrass used in the making of kombucha still had a lot of essence left in its leaves after its first pressing.

She decided to create a zero calorie sparkling water product to stretch the lemongrass flavour further, thereby reducing waste. The result is Squeeze – sparkling water with upcycled ingredients.

We underlined the refreshing, bright flavour of the drink with a bold colour palette, and stayed true to the Booch ethos with the typography and graphics.

In late fall of 2023 2 new flavours were added to the lineup.

Kapuzinerin Sprudel is a small batch brand for sparkling water from the Kloster Maria Opferung in Zug, Switzerland.

The “Kapuzinerin” logo is custom drawn in-house (or rather, in-cloister) by Martin Iten. For remaining text, the blackletter typeface Schmaltzy is used alongside Tiller, Rijsenburg, and Smillingen, complementing the ornamental illustrations. The labels are designed by Peter Voth, who writes:

The monastery existed for over 700 years, since 1309 to be exact. In the historic monastery building, the heart of the entire property, the Catholic lay organization Anima Una has been operating since the fall of 2018. The organization realizes creative projects that want to preserve the historical place and give it a future. One of these projects is this monastery product.

The label design features a major illustration of Sister Anna (1930–2019) the last Mother of the Capuchin Sisters of Maria Opferung. Also featured on the label is a historic engraving style illustration of the monastery and some herbs like nettles, peppermint leaves and Rosemary.

Aura Bora is a producer of uniquely flavored sparkling waters made from herbs, fruits, and flowers. Founded by Paul and Maddie Voge, Aura Bora’s beverages can be found at more than 3,000 retailers across the United States. They worked with branding agency Moxie Sozo to develop their playful brand and the designs of their cans.

Condor is used for product titles and serves as the basis for the logo, which has a custom flourish on the crossbar of the A. Space Mono is the primary font for body copy, with Barlow Bold used for other headlines and supporting text (often with a bouncy baseline).

According to in-house designer Jesse Manby:

We wanted our typefaces to be as delightful and bold as the flavors in our cans. Condor was chosen to lead the pack as we felt it embodies our playful, otherworldly aesthetic and translates each new flavor seamlessly into the Aura Bora world.

The type palette accompanies lively and colorful illustrations of animals and natural settings. As Moxie Sozo states in their write-up of the project:

The packaging creates an immersive world through rich storytelling and quirky, character-driven illustration. The softer color palette connotes a natural (and more interesting) clean ingredient panel. Even the matte label elevates the tactile experience alongside less premium direct-to-can competitors.

The brand typography of StrangeLove combines the serif Wulkan with GT America and its fixed-width sibling GT America Mono. The latter is used for ASCII art and little puzzle games.

From Marx Design:

Melbourne-based StrangeLove is a dynamic and unconventional drinks company. Building on the success of their Tonic & Soda ranges, They saw an opportunity to disrupt the sparkling water category. Introducing “Another drink by StrangeLove” StrangeLove sparkling waters. Zero sugar, zero calories & all natural flavours. After looking at many periodic tables, analysing mineral content and PH levels we saw a parallel in computer generated ascii code. Using the strategy of “borrowing from the past and modernising for the future” we had used for their other ranges. We created the variant graphics from individual text characters, a graphic technique that was used to create computer graphics in the 1980s. Embracing the idea that the water is made from many individual properties put together. The result is ownable unexpected design execution, that make the products stand out on shelf, as well as connecting with its core audience.

F37 Ginger by F37 Foundry in use for Bubly by PepsiCo. From F37 Foundry Brand Fonts:

PepsiCo had plans to shake up the sparkling water market. With a brand-new range called Bubly in place, the global food and beverage company was looking to compete more strongly with market leaders LaCroix.

F37 Ginger was selected from a handful of the highest quality typefaces. We worked closely with the in-house creative team at PepsiCo to provide fonts that would work across global markets.

The bubly voice is upbeat and charismatic with a playfully modern aesthetic, which made F37 Ginger the perfect choice for our brand font. The customization added an additional level of distinction, while the quality and craftsmanship of the type ensures every engagement will make bubly fans smile.

Mauro Porcini — SVP & Chief Design Officer, PepsiCo

The movement to legalize cannabis in the USA has created a wave of business opportunities for budding entrepreneurs. One such startup is Recess, a new, beautifully-designed “sparkling water infused with hemp extract and adaptogens for balance and clarity.” The boutique brand agency Day Job designed the company's brand identity with a dreamy elegance, using Sharp Grotesk throughout the website, and product packaging.

Read and see more images at Sharp Type News.

Master thesis on the situation and future of bottled water in Germany on the example of the “Aachener Kaiserbrunnen”, a regional water brand that was founded more than 125 years ago.

Target of the thesis was to design an unique identity concept, as well as a new bottle and to position Kaiserbrunnen as an attractive brand in the scene-beverage segment.

Master thesis at the FH Aachen, University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Design (2014).

Stefan Zimmermann
www.deszign.de

Mentoring
Prof. Ralf Weißmantel
Prof. Clemens Stübner