With November in full swing and the weather getting colder, coffee lovers can finally rejoice in the seasonal release of Starbucks’ holiday drinks. But if you’re anything like me, the long-awaited release of holiday drinks only means one thing: new holiday cup designs!  

Last week, Starbucks unveiled four brand new holiday cup designs featuring their signature Siren logo with red, white, and green colors. But to change things up from previous years, three of the four cup designs are heavily driven by typography. Here’s a quick look into each: 

Polka Dots

The first holiday cup features the signature red cup dotted with green polka dots around it. Sprinkled in between are a few Siren logos scaled down to fit inside some of the green circles. Being that there is no typography at all on this cup, I personally think it does not fit in with the other three, and for that reason is my least favorite of the bunch.  

Candy Cane Stripe

The second cup features a striped candy cane as the background, with the letters “S-T-A-R-B-U-C-K-S” sprinkled over top of the stripes. While this is an interesting use of typography to create movement and texture on the cup, I feel that it is too much going on all at once. The stripes and the scattered letters are competing for attention, and the dark green color of the letters causes the Starbucks logo to become lost among the chaos. While it’s still more interesting than the polka dot design, a more subtle approach to the letters could have helped the candy cane stripes stand out and give a more distinct holiday look to the cup. 

Merry Dance

The third design is tied for my favorite of the new Starbucks holiday cups. Featuring layers of red and green typography on top of a solid white cup gives this design a lighter, more snowy look. Green outlined letters placed slightly off from solid red letters beneath, all shown askew in stripes across the cup give the overall design movement and energy while still feeling wintery and holiday themed. Appearing almost as holiday lights shaped as letters, the tilted type spells “Merry Coffee” to keep the greeting neutral and not tied to any specific holiday, and do not have to compete with any colors or textures in the background. For Starbucks, this is a new approach from designs in the past, and I think it is definitely a step in the right direction. 

Merry Stripes

Finally, my favorite design of the 2019 Starbucks holiday cups is awarded to “Merry Stripes.” With a solid, dark green background and small lines of diagonal type, this cup design gives the appearance of a subtle texture from a distance. Similar to the “Merry Dance” cup, the bouncing letters show movement and energy with the askew type on a diagonal lined pattern across the entire cup. The use of just one color on the cup balances the large amount of text that is being used around it. And instead of suggesting specific themes of Christmas with red and green together, the dark evergreen color is reminiscent of a wooded wintery forest covered in snow. As green is a color that is often associated with the Starbucks brand, this design makes the most sense. And with a brown cup sleeve, I think this holiday cup design wins my vote as the perfect wintery Starbucks cup this holiday season. 

Rolling out new holiday cups every winter is nothing new to this coffee brand. Starbucks has been releasing specialty coffee cups for the holidays since 1997 (check out all 22 years here!), and with all the buzz their cups have received in the last few years, I anticipate this will be a tradition that continues for many years to come. The possibilities are truly endless for what can be done for this global brand. I think the choice to work with typography for this year’s set of cups was a great decision for the brand, and I’m excited to see what direction the company will take next year for 2020. Until then, you better believe I’ll be at a Starbucks in the next few days ordering a holiday drink – ‘tis the season for holiday spirit! 

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