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James Sommerville Talk


So, everyone knows that’s the Coca-Cola formula is top secret; only two people in the world knowing how to make it. James Sommerville came to the University to do a talk on his work and career beginning from his start-up company at 19.

He began the talk with a ‘thank you’ for attending and then lead on to John Lennon quote
‘When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” Therefore, he went into graphic design due to it being his passion.

He went on to telling us every young designer will face challenges, his was the mass unemployment which forced him to begin his own company with partner Simon Needham called Attik. Beginning in Huddersfield 1986 much described by the name their office was a Attik Bedroom in Paddock.

He said that as a huge company he must beware of the ‘Two dudes in the garage making the next Coca-Cola’ having to keep with the times and look for new talent to recruit to keep Coca-Cola with the times. At the time James and Simon where the two guys in the garage, well in this case attic.

In 2006 they got a call from Coca-Cola headquarters asking them to do some work for a football themed bottle (world cup). In response to the brief they literally mixed the bottle and a football together alternating the colours to be able to include the countries of the world.

In the Coca-Cola building in Atlanta where James now works there is a basement with 130 years of cokes heritage everything that has ever been done is archive down there. William C D’Arcy was chief advertiser and is someone Sommerville takes a lot of inspiration from. He was the guy to first come up with the red disc.  The red disc was something they would give out to every vender who sold Coca-Cola for them to display on their shop front this meant that customers knew if they went I they could but the sugary drink. IT wasn’t cutting edge but it worked like a dream.

James Sommerville loves working with new designers and using the archive in the Atlanta building so therefore, asks designers to put their own spin of older pieces.

Jonathan Mak was the guy who created the handshake in the middle of the ribbon, something so simple which said so many things all at once; Hello, greetings, sharing. This piece won award. The ribbon itself is the negative space between two coke bottles.

 Mr. Brainwash was given the classic lady in red and asked to redesign here. So, her brought her into the 21st century, getting her to take a selfie. Rafa another design with the same task took her down to the bare minimal, just the read lips with the coke bottle separating the bottom and top lip.

Noma Bar created the Marvel superhero cans which best suited him as he is a designer who works with negative space.

What’s next for coke?

Each type of coke seems to have a different colour:

Original – Red
Zero – Black
Diet – Silver
Life – Green

Coke is red, a red which they have all the rights to. People in the future may not want to by coke original due to it being so sugary. This would make the red, which is Coca-Cola’s identity, extinct changing what makes Coca-Cola what it is and made to be. They are calling it ‘Red Disc Rising’ Slowly removing the extra colours and taking the company back to its roots.


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