I recently met one of the original members of the Coca-Cola Collectors Club – Russell Clayton. Coca-Cola Chairman Robert W. Woodruff once wrote in a letter to Russell, “you certainly qualify as one of our “biggest fans””. Russell tells us in this video how he started collecting Coke memorabilia, and how his admiration for Coca-Cola’s Robert Woodruff ultimately made him take interest in the artwork of Athos Menaboni, the Italian-born artist who created hand-painted artwork for the Coca-Cola Company airplane and also painted a bird for Woodruff’s Christmas card for 44 consecutive years. Menaboni did a poster for Coca-Cola in 1951 called “Play Refreshed”, and also created the birds for the 1959 Coca-Cola “American Birds” home calendar.

You can also read Russell’s history of Woodruff’s Menaboni Christmas card collection at this link.

It is a beautiful sunny fall-like Friday afternoon here in Atlanta, so I took a long walk in from the parking deck.  I have always loved this "zodiac" sculpture near the parking deck.  While I am not sure how many of our employees even know why this sculpture is on our campus or what it stands for, I will share the answer with you. This sculpture used to be part of the exterior frieze over the doorway of The Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Company.  The zodiac imagery was used to indicate that Coke was the drink for all seasons.  When the bottling plant was torn down, the Company salvaged the sculpture and had it installed at our headquarters.  If you are ever lucky enough to visit Coca-Cola HQ, make sure to take a walk out by the parking lots to check it out. ^TR

August 28th is National Bow Tie Day, and we have to celebrate.  I love bow ties. They add a touch of whimsy better than an otherwise boring necktie.  I just saw an gallery of 25 famous bow tie wearers and it was an interesting crowd including Krusty the Clown,  Groucho Marx, Winston Churchill, Pee-wee Herman and my favorite, the 11th Doctor Who.  I did a quick search in our collection and found an interesting array of advertising art featuring bow ties.  I hope you enjoy the photo album, and remember, as Doctor Who says, "bow ties are cool." ^TR

I blogged earlier about receiving the jacket Mark Ronson wore in the London Olympic Games ad, and received several request via our facebook page and twitter feed to try it on and upload some photos.  Sadly, it is a bit small for me, but Justine Fletcher and Carrie Brown both looked splendid!  

The newest exhibit in the Pop Culture Gallery at the World of Coca-Cola features the work of artist David Clayman . In the exhibit, Clayman interprets the iconic Coca-Cola bottle in a collection of fifteen original abstract wood constructions, each ornamented with handcrafted wood elements that create vibrant abstract designs. This video from 11Alive Atlanta gives great insight into the 86-year old artist and his work.

Our Coca-Cola Great Britain website recently launched a section that highlighted movies or television programming that had some of our products featured.  It is a pretty interesting list and made me wonder what older movies had a Coke presence.  I visited the Harley Davidson Museum several  years ago and they had a great section on all the movies with Harley's, and when we were building the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, we considered creating a film reel with many of the scenes, but could not get the rights to the clips. If we could get the rights to any movies we wanted, what film clips with Coca-Cola would you like to see?  I will start, I would want:

• Dr. Strangelove - the scene where they shoot the vending machine to get the change
• The Gods Must Be Crazy- Coke bottle from the sky
• Independence Day - Scene where they tries to shoot the Coke can with the shield up

What movies can you think of?

Thanks to everyone who tested their skills on our Coca-Cola Crossword Puzzle from 1925. Below, you will find the image of the original crossword puzzle art from our collection, which was also run as the puzzle solution in the April 15, 1925 isse of The Red Barrel. Hopefully, you got all the answers right!

When I travel, I always note and quite often stop to photograph old Coke signs or vending equipment I run across.  As I was leaving Mt. Rainier National Park while on vacation recently, I saw a great Coke sign to add to the collection.  I could not help but notice the iron statutes all over the yard as I got out of the car to take the photograph.  It turns out I had stumbled across Ex-Nihilo, the outdoor sculpture park for Recycled Spirits of Iron by artist Dan Klennert.   I enjoyed the artwork and would have loved to have stayed longer, but after a day of hiking the mountain, it was time to move on.  If your travels ever take you to Washington State, take a side trip down State Road 706 to enjoy the art, and, as Dan says, "Welcome into my imagination, please wipe your feet."

One of the more interesting things I did while I was in London a few weeks ago was film an interview with Bianca, who is a blogger on parenting, art and design.  You can read her blog here.  While we had scheduled the interview beforehand, I had never met her and I did not expect to see her show up dressed to match the 50s advertising posters we had on display at the Design Museum!  She was great and we had fun filming the segment and I hope you enjoy the video and scenes from the Design in Perfect Harmony event we did that night.  You can also read a blog I write for the Coca-Cola Great Britain website here.

In 1977, The Coca-Cola Company commissioned illustrators, brothers Greg and Tim Hildebrandt to paint a series of illustrations which would be used as a promotional items for colleges.  The Hildebrants became famous when they were selected to illustrate the 1976 calendar for J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels.  The 1977 version of that calendar sold more that one million copies becoming one of the best selling calendars of the era.   1977 was a good year for the pair as they also illustrated the movie poster for the first Star Wars film.

The artwork the brothers Hildebrandt created for Coca-Cola had typical college activites recast in a fantasy setting.  The posters were popular enough that McDonald's negotiated an exclusive distribution agreement with Coca-Cola until the program was discontinued in 1985. We have the original artwork in the Archives, but you do not see too many of the posters in the marketplace.