SodaStream carbonates your tap water.

SodaStream is a lesson in a very old idea, repeatedly reinvented. Its origins trace to 1903 in Britain, when Guy Hugh Gilbey of the London gin distillers W & A Gilbey made an “apparatus for aerating liquids,” first sold to the upper classes and the royal household; the recognisable mass-market home machine arrived in 1955. (An honest note: the product/brand is 1903 British — don’t say it was “invented in Israel,” even though the modern company is Israeli. Two more: no official brand hex is published, and the wordmark typeface is undocumented.)

SodaStream became a cultural fixture in 1970s–80s Britain: the jingle “Get busy with the fizzy” (1979) was so popular it was folded into the logo, and by 1983 SodaStream was in roughly one in ten British homes. The product idea is simple and durable: a machine carbonates ordinary tap water using a pressurised CO2 cylinder (a refill/exchange model — you swap empty cylinders for full ones), served in reusable bottles, with optional flavour syrups. In the modern era the brand repositioned around sustainability — fewer single-use plastic bottles and cans — which powered a major revival.

The modern company is Israeli (headquartered in Israel). One chapter belongs in an honest history, told neutrally: its main plant at Mishor Adumim, in the West Bank, drew BDS boycott activism; SodaStream closed it and moved production to the Negev around 2015 (a move that both created jobs and cost others — reported both ways). A famous marketing moment: the 2014 Super Bowl ad featuring Scarlett Johansson, after which she stepped down as an Oxfam ambassador amid the settlement-factory controversy. In 2018, PepsiCo acquired SodaStream for about $3.2 billion. The identity is bright and fizzy. Fizz at home.

SodaStream lives in bright, fizzy blues. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

SodaStream’s identity leans on bright, fizzy blues and aquas, with white and fresh accents. The palette literally evokes sparkling water and bubbles — light, clean, refreshing and a little playful — matching a brand about turning flat tap water into something lively at home. In sustainability contexts it also leans on greens, reinforcing the “fewer plastic bottles” message. It’s an approachable, everyday palette that reads as fresh and fun rather than premium or serious. The honest caveat: SodaStream publishes no official brand hex, so the aqua and blue here are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party values.

The lesson is a fresh, fizzy palette can embody the product experience. SodaStream’s blues and aquas look like the sparkling water they make. For designers, it’s a reminder that colour can evoke a product’s core sensation (fizz, freshness). The takeaways: match the palette to the product experience (bright, fizzy blues); lean on green where the sustainability story leads; and treat specific hexes as unofficial when no brand spec is published.

The wordmark is a friendly rounded sans — bright and approachable.

SodaStream’s identity carries a friendly, rounded, approachable spirit — a soft sans-serif feel that reads as fun, everyday and unintimidating. The friendly type matches a home product about a little fizzy fun and a sustainability habit, and it keeps the brand approachable for a mainstream household audience. Set against bright, fizzy blues, the type feels light and inviting — exactly the fresh, everyday personality SodaStream cultivates. It’s soft and approachable rather than premium or technical, mirroring the fun home appliance. Because the exact wordmark face isn’t publicly documented, the honest description is “a friendly rounded sans spirit,” not a named font. The type behaves like the brand: bright, friendly and approachable.

SodaStream kept reinventing fizz.

SodaStream is a lesson in repeatedly reinventing a century-old idea. Home carbonation dates to 1903, and SodaStream itself has lived several lives — an aristocratic novelty, a nostalgic 1970s–80s British kitchen fixture (“get busy with the fizzy”), and a modern, sustainability-led lifestyle brand. That last reinvention is the instructive one: by reframing the same core product (carbonate your own tap water) around reducing single-use plastic, SodaStream found new relevance with an environmentally-minded generation and drove a revival significant enough for PepsiCo to buy it for ~$3.2B in 2018. The durable model underneath — a razor-and-blades system of machines plus refillable CO2 cylinders — gives it recurring revenue and a sticky habit. The lesson is that an old, even dated, product can be repeatedly renewed by re-anchoring it to what the current moment values (here, sustainability), without changing what it fundamentally does. Reframe the old idea for the new moment, and it lives again.

For designers and brand-builders, SodaStream offers a clear takeaway: a dated product can be revived by re-anchoring it to present-day values. The lessons: keep the durable core model (machines + refillable CO2 cylinders); reframe the same product for the current moment (sustainability, less single-use plastic); and handle a brand’s harder chapters honestly and neutrally. It’s also a reminder to keep the facts precise — home carbonation traces to 1903 Britain (not an Israeli invention), the modern company is Israeli, and PepsiCo acquired SodaStream in 2018 for about $3.2 billion. SodaStream kept reinventing fizz — proof that an old idea can be renewed for a new moment.

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