Aquarius is one of the labels of Coca-Cola, which was established in 1978. The brand specializes in the production of energetic drinks with various flavors. The first sports drink under this name was launched in 1983 and had a grapefruit taste.
Aquarius isa brand of energetic drinks enriched with minerals and helps to maintain the body’s water balance. These Coca-Cola beverages were first launched in America in 1978, and by the mid-1980s they had already begun to conquer the Asian market.
Today Aquarius has its beverages available in various flavors, and each of them is enriched with one of the essential minerals, like zinc, magnesium, or vitamin E. The bright bottles with the Aquarius branding can be found on the shelves of supermarkets all over the globe.
What is Aquarius?
Aquarius is the name of an energetic drinks label, owned by Coca-Cola Company. The brand was established at the end of the 1970s, and by today has grown into one of the most famous labels in the segment, with its energy drinks distributed all over the globe.
The Coca-Cola Company makes the Aquarius beverage since 1983. It was unveiled in Japan as a grapefruit-flavored sports drink, while its introduction in Spain and Portugal took place in 1991.
Both the current logo and the old one feature the name of the brand in dark blue and teal. The palette was inspired by the fresh and cool feel the beverage is supposed to provide. It also echoed the word “Aqua” (“water”) in its name.
To make the water theme even more prominent, the design forces behind the brand decided to make the left stroke of the second “A” look like a drop. They even placed a white drop inside to create a fresh highlight. The right stroke of the “A” has a dynamic “swooshy” feel. The fact that all the other letters were italicized added even more motion.
In 2005 the Aquarius logo was refreshed. The stylish blue logotype was now set diagonally and the plain white background got replaced by a gradient blue bubbly background, representing the purpose of the brand and its product. The main signifier, the letter “A”, got its contours cleaned and refined, and the ends of the lines — pointed. The letter was now outlined in white, as well as all the other letters of the inscription, for a better contrast with a vivid and intense background.
The water background was replaced by a white one again in 2013. Though the lettering was still set diagonally, the inclination was not that strong as in the previous version. The outline of the logotype was gone, as was not needed anymore. As for the “A”, it was redrawn in a sleeker and more minimalist way, using just one sea-blue gradient shade for all bars of the letter. The rest of the inscription was also redrawn in a new dark blue shade with some lighter tones in the middle of the wordmark.
Once again, the middle “A” is the centerpiece of the design. This time, it is simpler, though. The “drop” theme seems to have gone. The letter is now made up of a teal arrowhead with a gradient teal curve replacing the “A’s” horizontal bar. The shape of the glyph is somewhat reminiscent of a mountain peak, which introduces another “source of freshness” into the logo.
So, while the previous logo was “as fresh as the water,” the current one is “as fresh as the water from mountain springs.”
The type in the Aquarius logo was updated, too. It is not italicized anymore and looks a bit broader in comparison with its predecessor.
In 2005-2013, in Spain, a rotated version of the 1991 logo was used. It was positioned at 45 degrees and placed over the “watery” background. In 2013, in the same country, another logo was introduced. It looked like a transitional variant where the “A” looked both like on the old version and that on the current one.
The uppercase inscription from the Aquarius badge is set in a slightly narrowed bold sans-serif typeface with the central letter “A” enlarged and stylized. The closest commercial fonts to the one, used in the Aquarius insignia, are, probably, Neue Plak Narrow Black, or ITC Avant Garde Gothic Std Condensed Bold, but with some slight modifications.
As for the color palette of the Aquarius visual identity, it is set in two plain shades of blue, a deep and dark one for the main part of the logotype, and a pleasant sky-blue for the central element, accompanied by a smooth gradient bar with some light hues, adding freshness and lightness to the whole composition.