The Smartwater brand appeared in the Coca-Cola portfolio in 2007. This “cloud-inspired water” flavor is highly valued by consumers around the world: Smarwater is the leader of the premium water segment in the U.S. and U.K., and Coca-Cola’s most profitable brand in the Water Portfolio.
However, the Smartwater brand was created more than 10 years before it was purchased by Coca-Cola. It was established in 1996 by J. Darius Bikoff from New York. The man caught a cold and was drinking vitamin C with mineral water, which gave him an idea of creating a beverage, which would combine both of the elements.
He even came up with the name Vitaminwater for the future product and soon founded the Energy Brands company. However, sometime later, the company’s first product was Smartwater.
Darius, in his own words, was inspired by the idea of Clouds. This is how Brand’s philosophy came into being, repeating the natural water cycle. Water is produced using condensation technology – first, the liquid turns into vapor, then “settles” as moisture, and at the final stage “smart electrolytes” are added to the product, which consists of magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, and potassium bicarbonate.
What is Smartwater?
Smartwater is the name of a water brand produced using a unique technology that repeats the natural water cycle: water from a natural source is turned into steam, which is then condensed again to produce crystal clear water. At the final stage, “smart electrolytes” – a complex of mineral substances – are added to the resulting water, which gives Smartwater a unique pure, and fresh taste.
In terms of visual identity, Smartwater managed to stay loyal to its original concept even after several logo redesigns. The changes were made mainly to the color palette and the boldness of the lines in the wordmark.
The original Smartwater logo, created in 1996, stayed with the brand for the first ten years of its history. It was a black-and-white composition, where the only element was the lettering: the lowercase inscription was split into two parts with no additional spacing between them — the bold “Smart” and the lightweight “Water” in the same modern sans-serif font with slightly narrowed characters.
After the acquisition of the brand by the Coca-Cola Company the color palette of the logo was switched to blue and white, and graphical elements were added to the composition. It was a large solid blue drop, which made a background for the white bold “Smart”, and the lightweight “Water” was written in a lighter font against a white background.
Another redesign has refined the shape of the water-drop emblem, stretching it horizontally, and intensifying the shade of blue used in the logo. The bold white “Smart” lettering was also slightly refined, with the tail of the “T” elongated. It was now reaching the edge of the drop, making up a more logical ornament.
In 2019 the color palette of the Smartwater logo was switched to calm purple and white. Composition-wise, the badge remained the same, and its left part stayed untouched, but the right one, with the “Water” lettering, got emboldened and now featured completely the same style as the “Smart”.
Another Smartwater logo was introduced in 2020. The blue and white color palettes got back, and the typeface of the wordmark was slightly refined, with the characters getting shorter and a bit wider. The “Glaceau” part of the logo got enlarged and can now be called the same full-fledged element of the logo as the main lettering, making up a vivid and delightful light blue accent.
The lowercase lettering from the primary logo of the Smartwater brand is set in a bold geometric sans-serif typeface, which looks quite similar to such popular fonts as Neue Helveticareg Paneuropean, Nimbus Sans Novustrade, and Europa Grotesk No 2 SHtrade, but with the shortened horizontal bar of the “T”.
As for the color palette of the Smartwater visual identity, it is based on a combination of blue and white, colors, which are most often associated with water, freshness, and cleanliness.