A Clear Winner

Alex and Earl did.

Alex and Earl worked for the Root Glass Factory in Terre Haute, Indiana where one of their major customers had a very big problem .. their packaged products kept getting counterfeited. So the customer had started a national contest and asked all their suppliers including the Root Glass Factory to come up with a package that, quote “a person could recognize even if they felt it in the dark, and so shaped that, even if broken, a person could tell at a glance what it was.” Unquote

Alex and Earl had no idea what to do … but knew where to find some inspiration, the local library. And after perusing many books, they found it in a picture of a nut in the Encyclopaedia Britannica … as the real thing was one of the primary ingredients in the customer’s product.

Well Alex and Earl’s design, based on the shape of that nut, won the contest and became the package the customer used everywhere.

Today, over 110 years after Alex & Earl’s trip to the local library … the package they created is trademarked and still one of the most instantly recognizable items anywhere in the world … the Coke Bottle

The Coke Bottle is a great idea … because simple research can help you find the real thing.