To celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Coca-Cola Contour Bottle. I was hornored to work with Brett Wickens while at Ammunition to design a celebratory poster that imagines the next 100 years of the Contour experience, with a group of 100 creative minds from around the world.
Our idea stemmed from the observation that the Coca-Cola brand had often been referred to as “smashable:” that if you were to literally take the Contour bottle and smash it on the ground, the pieces would still be recognizable as Coca-Cola. Such is the strength and power of the brand’s symbolism.
We decided to honor this concept by taking the “smashable” notion into the future. By experimenting within the field of “generative art,” we manipulated computer code to animate the deconstruction and reconstruction of the familiar bottle shape. This was achieved by first creating an invisible three-dimensional form of the bottle, and then firing particle trails at it from behind. As the particles entered the shape, they bounced around inside it until the shape became recognizable.
Because the effect became more visible over time, we had to choose the point at which the bottle was just recognizable enough — not too esoteric and not too obvious. The result is a fascinating spatial reconstruction of the form from within, showcased in a dynamic halo of light rays.
We titled the piece “happiness generation” in honor of the Coke brand promise (happiness), and the double-meaning of the word “generation” (the generative art process, and the new generations of people who enjoy the role that Coca-Cola plays in their lives).
