A western Canadian drinks distributor makes a soda of its own.

Jones Soda grew out of a drinks distributor. The company’s own “About Jones Soda” page, as archived in 2005, says its story began in 1987, when founder and president Peter van Stolk saw the potential of “alternative” products in the beverage trade. It says the business started not as a maker of its own brand but as a distributor in western Canada of other lines, naming Just Pik’t Juices, Arizona Iced Tea and Thomas Kemper sodas, and that by 1994 it was a full-line beverage distributor there.

The same page says the company then made brands of its own: a spring water called WAZU, launched in April 1995, and Jones Soda, launched in January 1996. English Wikipedia lists the launch flavours, sold in glass bottles, as including Orange, Cherry, Grape and Raspberry. The company page also says that, as of 1 August 2000, Urban Juice and Soda Company Ltd. officially changed its name to Jones Soda Co., and English Wikipedia says the company moved its headquarters from Vancouver to Seattle at about the same time.

By the mid-2000s the company was firmly a Seattle business. The Seattle Times described van Stolk in February 2007 as the Seattle company’s founder and chief executive, and CNNMoney called Jones Soda a Seattle beverage maker in October 2008. That same report said that at the end of 2007 the company had replaced its founder as chief executive with Stephen Jones, a former marketing executive at Coca-Cola, adding that his shared surname with the company was a coincidence. English Wikipedia records later chief executives, including Mark Murray, promoted in December 2020.

The company page of 2005 also described how the soda reached its early drinkers. Under what it called its “alternative distribution strategy,” Jones placed its own coolers, “bearing their signature flames,” in skate, surf and snowboard shops, tattoo and piercing parlours and fashion and music stores, before moving into convenience and food stores and then larger chains.

Labels made from customers’ photographs.

Jones Soda’s 2005 company page says its packaging “features constantly changing labels that are generated and submitted by its consumers,” and the archived home page of 2000 put it more loosely: “The labels are kinda like our minds — always changing.” That home page credited a customer’s quote and a label photograph to named members of the public and their home towns, and invited visitors to send in a quote or a photo of their own.

Independent reports describe the same thing. The Seattle Times wrote in February 2007 about the “funky, black-and-white label pictures that come from customers,” and noted that Pepsi had started rotating its label designs, “something Jones has done for years.” CNNMoney said in October 2008 that, besides its unusual flavours, the company had become known for distinctive glass bottles featuring photos sent in by the public. The 2005 company page linked the labels to its websites, including a myJones site, and English Wikipedia says the company sold customised bottles under the myJones name.

The flavour names drew their own coverage. The Seattle Times mentioned turkey and gravy and a soda called “Bohemian Raspberry”; CNNMoney listed fufu berry, brussels sprout and bug juice. English Wikipedia says the seasonal Turkey & Gravy flavour appeared in November 2003 and was followed by holiday packs, and that later tie-ins included a Nuka-Cola Quantum soda made with Target and Bethesda Softworks in 2015 for the game Fallout 4, and a 7-Select line for 7-Eleven in 2016.

The recipe changed in 2007. The Seattle Times reported that Jones had announced in autumn 2006 that it would replace high-fructose corn syrup with cane sugar, that shipments of Jones Pure Cane Soda began in January 2007 and that all but the energy drinks would follow by April. The company backed the switch with an advertising campaign whose lines included “Corn is for cars.”

Cans, bottles and labels on the cooler shelf.

Ready-to-drink tea, flavored water, sports drinks and craft soda share a cooler shelf, but their packaging asks different things of a label. A tea can or tall glass bottle is often read from several feet away, so the name, the flavor and a colour cue have to work together at a glance, while the back of the pack carries ingredients, nutrition panels and the legal small print that every drink must show.

Flavored-water and sports-drink bottles tend to lean on colour coding, since a shopper picking one flavor from a long row is often matching a hue rather than reading a word. Craft-soda labels sit at the other end: many use illustration, hand lettering or a story on the bottle to suggest a small maker, even when the brand has since become part of a much larger drinks company.

Each guide in this group looks at who started the brand, who owns it now and how its labels, logos and bottles have been described in dated sources, and it marks plainly where a statement rests only on what the company says about itself. The colours and type shown are our own unofficial interpretation.

A company voice built on customers and small shops.

Jones Soda has written its voice into its own pages. The 2005 company page ended with the line “Run with the little guy… create some change,” and the archived home page of 2000 used the same phrase. The company said it had “always been about the consumer and interacting with the consumer,” pointing to the ever-changing photos on its labels and to its websites, and it described a following among soda drinkers, staff, directors and shareholders. Those are the company’s own words about itself.

The same page listed the people and vehicles that carried the name: sponsored BMX, skateboard and surf riders who wore the Jones logo at sporting events, and Jones RVs that toured North American cities on both coasts handing out soda. The coolers with their “signature flames” put the brand in shops that did not usually sell soft drinks, before the drink reached larger chains, which the company page named as including Starbucks, Panera Bread, Target and 7-Eleven.

The label photographs that The Seattle Times described in 2007 were black and white and came from customers, and the same report said Jones had rotated its label designs for years. CNNMoney described Jones in 2008 as a cult soda company, selling soft drinks in kooky flavours, that had become known for bottles carrying photos sent in by the public.

Later campaigns were dated and specific. The switch to cane sugar in 2007 came with an advertising campaign whose lines included “Corn is for cars,” The Seattle Times reported, and English Wikipedia records tie-ins with Target and Bethesda Softworks in 2015 and with 7-Eleven in 2016.

For a design guide, Jones Soda shows how a brand can hand its main visual space to its customers and still stay recognisable. Compare Cheerwine and Faygo, two American regional sodas with their own long-running labels. For this guide we use photo black, print white and a flame orange with a heavy sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Jones Soda’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.