Fresca is one of the oldest soft drink brands of the Coca-Cola Company, which entered the market in 1966. The main feature of the low-calorie beverage is its citrus flavor: even though, there are Fresca with Black Cherry, Peach, and Blackberry additions.
The Coca-Cola Company introduced its sugar-free, grapefruit-flavored Fresca soda to the market in 1966. It happened on the wave of success of the Tab brand – the first low-calorie soda from Coca-Cola. However, the drink didn’t break any records for a long time. The Fresca soda reached its peak of popularity in 2006, when, according to Beverage Digest, its share of the American soft drink market was 0.5%.
In 2018, Coca-Cola revamped Fresca’s packaging design and flavors to spur sales of the drink. Another attempt to “refresh” Fresca’s popularity was Coca-Cola’s collaboration with Constellation Brands, which was announced in 2022. The company said it is set to launch a ready-to-drink alcoholic cocktail called Fresca Mixed under its Fresca brand of low-calorie carbonated drinks.
For Coca-Cola, collaborations with alcohol companies are already the norm: in 2021, the brand teamed up with Molson Coors to launch a hard seltzer-branded soda called Topo Chico. Fresca Mixed stands out from the rest of the collaborations because it’s made with hard liquor – there’s a vodka-based version and a tequila-based version.
What is Fresca?
Fresca is the name of a Coca-Cola brand, which has existed since 1966. It is an invigorating and refreshing carbonated soft drink with a citrus flavor. There are several products in the Fresca line, but all of them contain hints of citrus.
In terms of visual identity, Fresca has come a long way with several completely different logos. However, all the changes were worth it, as today the badge of the brand looks super elegant yet actual and strong.
The original Fresca logo, introduced in the middle of the 1960s, looks very cool and simple for its times — it was a narrowed uppercase lettering in a fancy designer typeface, written in solid green against a transparent background with no graphical additions.
The redesign of 1970 added colors and complicated elements to the Fresca logo composition. Now the lettering was rewritten in the title case of a bold geometric sans-serif typeface, with the green and light-blue characters jumping slightly above and beyond the diagonal line. The wordmark was set against a transparent background on the right from an abstract emblem, depicting a massive blue swirl on white.
In 1975 the Fresca logo was simplified, coming back to its original solid green color palette. However, the geometric sans-serif typeface from the previous version was kept. Now the letters were placed in a straight diagonal line, against a transparent background.
The logo, created for the Fresca brand in 1980, was somewhat fresh and new. The diagonal direction of the lettering was the only thing that connected it with the previous versions. The bold uppercase lettering in a geometric sans-serif typeface was written against a white background and enclosed between the three thick lines: the light green on top, and the yellow and bright green at the bottom.
The redesign of 1986 has surprised the customers with a super laconic and even strict Fresca logo. It was a black-and-white composition with the uppercase diagonal lettering inscribed into a square frame and accompanied by the additional lettering in small capitals.
In 1988 the Fresca wordmark was rewritten in a bold yet elegant serif typeface, with the color of the characters changing to blue, and an additional white and gold outline of the contours, adding gloss and volume to the composition. The inscription was set under a delicate emblem, depicting two grapefruits on a branch, drawn in the same gold and blue color palette.
The redesign of 1996 has brought back the juicy colors: the new palette was composed of green, yellow, blue, and white. The white uppercase lettering in serif was written over a solid blue rectangular banner which was placed on a background with yellow and green grapefruits.
In 2005 the Fresca logo was rewritten in an elegant and minimalistic style. It was a black uppercase lettering in a custom sans-serif typeface, written against a white background and enclosed between the two short horizontal strokes in turquoise. The medium-weight capital characters had straight cuts of the bars and rounded angles.
Another redesign was held to the Fresca visual identity in 2018. The uppercase lettering was rewritten in a new geometric sans-serif typeface with the arched bottom line, creating an interesting geometry of the bars and their straight cuts. The solid blue bodies of the characters have thin light blue outlines, which add freshness and elegance to the composition.
The classy uppercase lettering from the official Fresca logo is set in a custom sans-serif typeface, which looks somewhat similar to such commercial fonts as Metafora or Octagen Condensed, but with some minor modifications of the characters’ contours.
As for the color palette of the Fresca visual identity, it is based on the combination of two shades of blue, which stand for freshness and lightness, and yellow and pink shades of the emblem, transmitting the citrus mood of the beverage and standing for energy and fun.