Plastic Contour-Shaped Coca-Cola Bottle
Location 183
Date: c. 1987
Owner: Tom and Betsy Brady
To avoid confusion with copycat brands, the Coca-Cola Company asked the Root Glass Company in Terra Haute, Indiana in 1916 to create a package that was "so distinctive that it could be recognized by touch alone, and so unique that it could be identified when shattered on the ground." The result was the iconic fluted countour Coca-Cola bottle design inspired by the curves and grooves of the gourd-shaped cocoa bean, an ingredient the designers originally thought was in the product. When the plastic PET (polyester) soft drink bottle alternative was first introduced and used by Coca-Cola in 1976, the only design option was a straight-sided generic bottle because the 60 psi pressure inside the traditional carbonated soft drink caused flexible plastic shaped bottles to deform. However, in the 1987, Plastic Technologies, Inc., an independent plastic packaging technology development company located in Holland, OH and founded by former O-I VP and Plastics Technical Director, Dr. Tom Brady, designed the first-ever commercially successful plastic PET 20 oz soft drink bottle for Coca-Cola which utilized the proprietary iconic contour-fluted Coca-Cola bottle. The key to designing a commercially successful contour-shaped plastic bottle that would not deform when the container was pressurized was the utilization of PTI's unique and proprietary Virtual Design (TM) computer software and the diligent application of the design features developed using the software by PTI employee/owner Scotte Steele and Dr. Long Fei Chang. Today, the Coca-Cola Company continues to utilize that iconic shape for both its glass and plastic bottles, and that fluted contour design is still considered to be the most recognized brand design in the world.
