This is a follow-up to my earlier guilty confession that I love to drink overly priced yuppy water. I can not stress that this is a personal struggle I have been dealing with for a long time. It is water. Seventy Percent of the earth is water. The stuff is literally falling from the sky for free yet some marketer and designer has packaged it up and brainwashed me to turn over cold hard cash for it. Some magical force comes over me and I BUY it. And buying it isn’t enough… I almost always am hypnotized to get the most expensive kinds. Flipping genius. Damn you Fiji!

Recovering from my rant I would like to share with you that I found this water while shopping (if you can call skipping around the store making fun of things that are too expensive to buy or too old to be real candidates for president) with Carly at Balduccis. This water is marketed online as being “fashionable” and “portable”. It is said to have been

“inspired by the military canteen, is designed around the principle of portability and utilization of space while maintaining a subtle harmony of form and function. The bottle is useful and fashionable; and the taste of SEI natural spring water is pure and crisp”

Brilliant. For pete’s sake… it is just water, but it on my desk in spite of my thirst… taunting me with it’s beautiful shape and making me feel unworthy of it’s elegant design. It has been weeks since I actually bought it and still I can not bring myself to drink it… it is far too lovely to look at 9.4 fl oz = 2 dollars.

You know you have nice packaging when you can sell water for more than its worth. I have an addiction to water. Being that i am a living creature can you really fault me? So let me rephrase this, i am addicted to high priced beautifully packaged pretentious water. Ridiculous… i know. Being that the it is the worlds most abundant molecule making up nearly 70% of that on the earths surface. But i equate the sales of water to that of selling honey to a bee. You are a good damn designer if you can convince me to buy something i know i can get for free in a single glance.

Frequently on my way into work i stop at Rite-Ade to pick up my 1.2 liter bottle of FIJI is genius and currently my water of choice. While the design of the bottle is not mind-blowing it has some key features that makes it a front runner in my quest for the supreme h2O experience. While cruising through the water section FIJI immediately stands out, a bottle with a clear square design rather than cylindrical one with frosted plastic. A simple transparent sticker on the back side shines through to the front panel depicting a palm and water fall through the crystal clear liquid. Crap, typing this is making me thirsty. One swig whisks away to the islands with tropical breezes and cabana boys. No it freaking doesn’t, but i do feel refreshed making a direct connection between the way my water looks and the way it tastes. And heck, its Artesian water! While i will fully admit that i originally thought the bottle said “artisan water” (and well i am all about buying products to help support artisans) , the idea of drinking water from a fancy dancy well in the tropics doesn’t hurt.

I rarely cough up the cash to go organic grocery shopping, but by the time i approach the checkout line at Whole Foods i have usually worked up quite a thirst. This is where i stumbled upon my next water of choice: Hint. With it’s simple graphics and sexy san serif typeface it immediately stood out from the other desperately competing waters. I’m a sucker for nice type, and Hint has it delicately overlaid on a 20oz crystal clear bottle. A bright color scheme and crisp corresponding graphics of fruit differentiate the many flavors while the stout little bottle mirrors to the truncated version of Bauhaus they use for their main typeface. While i have not had the opportunity to try many flavors i was surprised to like and highly recommend cucumber.

A year or so ago i had the pleasure of dining at a fantastic restaurant in the District by the name of David Greggory. Not only was my rack of lamb fantastic but i was delightfully pleased to see a bottle of Voss water delivered to me before my meal. Some may have seen this as a bougie statement, boastfully overstating the understated, but i saw it as a choice made in good taste. Nothing says classy more than water in a glass bottle. Voss serves the worlds most abundant and readily available resource up in packaging that is hard to ignore. The simple design highlights the purity of the product in an elegant fashion and that is why i will hold up my glass of water and toast Voss.
[techtags:package design, water package design, package design, hint, fiji water, Voss water, artesian water]