The Coca-Cola Advertising Archive (1880s–1960s) presents a long chronological panorama of the brand’s visual identity over eight decisive decades — from its earliest newspaper and pharmacy-style promotions of the 1880s to the sophisticated magazine campaigns of the mid-20th century. These materials trace not only the evolution of Coca-Cola’s graphic design, but also changes in American illustration, printing technology, consumer culture, and social representation.

Although the Coca-Cola Company produced an enormous number of advertisements, a surprising portion of early material survives only in fragmentary or poorly reproduced form. Many ads featured here — particularly from the 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, and 1920s — are difficult or impossible to locate online in high quality. They were rebuilt from original printed sources such as The Literary Digest, Pictorial Review, The Saturday Evening Post, The American Magazine, and store displays, then restored for clarity, tonality, and color integrity.

Across the decades, these images reveal the striking shifts in Coca-Cola’s visual language:

• Victorian and early 1900s eras: ornate typography, pharmacy-style illustrations, and early brand slogans.

• 1910s–1920s: the rise of the “New Woman,” stylized elegance, and Art Nouveau/Art Deco influences.

• 1930s: modernized layouts, cleaner typography, and broader mass-market appeal.

• 1940s wartime years: patriotic themes, rationing-era messaging, and the industrial optimism of the Machine Age.

• 1950s–1960s: the fully developed mid-century lifestyle aesthetic — leisure, fashion, sports, and the beginnings of televised culture.

The archive includes several notable rarities, such as early skiing-themed ads, prototype compositions, and variants reflecting different racial representations — materials nearly invisible in today’s mainstream Coca-Cola historiography. These pieces allow a deeper understanding of how advertising imagery addressed different audiences and markets over time.

Each advertisement has been digitized and restored with a level of precision consistent with the graphic-arts archives across Ikonographia, including the Portfolio and Flair Magazine collections. The result is not merely a gallery of nostalgic images, but a scholarly, visually coherent resource documenting how Coca-Cola’s design strategies shaped — and responded to — broader movements in illustration, photography, fashion, and American commercial art.

This archive is continuously expanding as new material is located, scanned, and restored. It serves designers, historians, collectors, educators, and anyone interested in the evolution of graphic design and brand storytelling in the United States.