Sparkling Ice made flavoured water loud.

Sparkling Ice is a lesson in colour as volume. Made by Talking Rain Beverage Company — an independent, family-owned bottler in Preston, Washington, founded in 1987 — the Sparkling Ice line dates to 1992. It is sold mostly in tall, clear 17-ounce PET bottles that show off a vividly coloured liquid, and it has grown into one of the best-selling flavoured sparkling waters in the US.

Crucially, it is not the same product as an unsweetened seltzer. Sparkling Ice is a zero-sugar but sweetened drink — flavoured with sucralose and fortified with vitamins and antioxidants — with added carbonation. In 2019 it switched to naturally sourced colours and flavours, and it leans hard into a loud, fun personality, most recently with the “Anything But Subtle” campaign fronted by actress Annie Murphy as “Chief Flavor Officer,” plus candy collaborations with Starburst and Life Savers.

(Honest notes: it is sweetened and fortified, not unsweetened like LaCroix — the most common mix-up; it is independently owned by Talking Rain, not a Coca-Cola or Pepsi brand; the company dates to 1987 while the Sparkling Ice line dates to 1992; and no official brand hex or typeface is published.)

Sparkling Ice lives in loud, saturated colour. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Sparkling Ice’s identity is bold, saturated and colour-coded — a Sparkling Ice purple, a berry pink, an aqua, a cream, and an ink. Like the drink itself, the palette is bright and unmissable: every flavour keys to a vivid hue, so retail multipacks are literally sold as “purple,” “blue” and “pink” packs. It signals fun, flavour and energy — the opposite of minimalist restraint. The honest caveat: with no published brand hex, these tones are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party values.

The lesson is loud colour can be a strategy, not a lack of taste. Sparkling Ice’s world is turned up. For designers, it is a reminder that in a crowded cooler, saturated, high-contrast colour and a clear bottle that reveals the drink can out-shout quieter rivals — matching an “anything but subtle” brand voice. The takeaways: commit to bold, per-flavour colour; use packaging that shows the product; and treat any single hex as unofficial — using a deep purple for small text so the brights stay loud.

The wordmark spirit is a bold, rounded sans — energetic and clear.

Sparkling Ice’s identity carries a bold, energetic, flavour-forward spirit — a chunky “Sparkling Ice” lockup that reads clearly across a colourful bottle. A bold, rounded sans captures the mood: it is confident and legible, the register of a brand whose whole promise is “anything but subtle.” Set against saturated colour, the bold type feels lively and unfussy — exactly the loud, fun personality Sparkling Ice carries. It is energetic rather than elegant, mirroring a bottle built to catch the eye. (Sparkling Ice’s real wordmark and bottle are trademarks and trade dress we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not published, so we don’t assert it.) Because the specific mark is not ours to use, the honest description is “a bold, rounded spirit,” not the Sparkling Ice logo. The type behaves like the brand: bold, clear and full of colour.

Sparkling Ice stands for volume.

Sparkling Ice is a lesson in choosing loud on purpose. As the flavoured-water category filled with restrained, pastel, unsweetened seltzers, Sparkling Ice went the other way — saturated colour, bold flavour, a clear bottle that shows the drink, and a voice that calls itself “anything but subtle.” That contrast is the whole positioning: it is the fun, flavourful, high-colour option in the cooler. The differentiator is deliberate loudness.

For designers and brand-builders, Sparkling Ice offers a clear takeaway: a strong contrarian aesthetic can be a moat. The lessons: pick a lane the category is ignoring (here, bold over minimal); build a colour system big and vivid enough to work as a range; and let packaging and voice agree (a loud bottle deserves a loud tagline). It is also a reminder to stay accurate: Sparkling Ice is sweetened and vitamin-fortified rather than unsweetened, it is independently owned by Talking Rain, and its candy tie-ins are with Starburst and Life Savers — with the palette here an unofficial interpretation. Sparkling Ice turned it up — proof that standing out can beat blending in.

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