
A million graphic designers at a million drawing boards could make one heck of a Picture Bible or create infinite bottles and cans for 133 years of happy fun liquid products.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
Every year since 1999 my wife Anne and I have taken a trip to a different part of the United States and visited attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. My son tagged along from 2003 until 2013 when he ventured off to college. We’ve taken two trips by airplane, but are much happier when we’re the ones behind the wheel — charting our own course, making unplanned stops anytime we want, availing ourselves of slightly better meal options, and keeping or ruining our own schedule as dictated by circumstances or whims. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.
For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’d been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we aimed for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness. Before we went to D*C, there was the road trip to get there, and the good times to be had before the great times at the big show.
Atlanta is home to a few major companies with international reach and historical impact. Among them, Coca-Cola may be the largest and/or oldest. The World of Coca-Cola, the official museum for the 133-year-old drink, houses a plethora of examples from the branding powerhouse’s long history of unique designs and consistent flourishes — that white stripe, that glacially metamorphosing calligraphy, that pervasive red. (Websites disagree on exactly which shade or color code of red or pinkish-red.) Some, especially Atlanta residents may regard Coke as an intrinsic part of the American way of life, but a corporation that size is rarely satisfied to depend on a single nation for all its earnings. Its art reaches across the decades and across multiple borders.