Today is the day we’ve all been waiting for. The day that Starbucks, the most venerated purveyor of holiday goods and arbiter of things that are right in the world finally releases their real holiday cups. And it’s not just one cup, either. There are 13 cups in all. And they’re all designed by you, the enthusiastic consumer who knows that no six-hour holiday shopping trip (good luck out there!) is complete without a gingerbread latter ensconced in a container that lets everyone know that the holidays are your favorite time of year (and not just because Bath&BodyWorks has so many crazy sales that it’s almost impossible to walk by that store without dropping $200 on sprays and lotions).
So what do the holiday cups look like? Well, they’re very, very festive. In fact, Eater goes so far as to refer to them as “festive AF,” which isn’t incorrect, but also makes them sound just a bit edgier than they are. Check ’em out:
Look at them, they’ve got everything: Reindeer and snowflakes and Christmas trees and even a peaceful barren landscape that suggests the nuclear winter that we will all one day face! So exciting! So festive! Cups that Eater reports even our president elect will be all over!
Are the cups a response to the completely manufactured outrage that took over the internet for a few days last November? Actually, yes! Because Starbucks — being a media-savvy company that understands their audience — took some time and decided that, hey, if people care about these cups so much, why not have the public design them?
From Starbucks’ official press release:
For years Starbucks customers have been decorating their white cups (Starbucks even held a contest to support this creativity). Taking a cue from customers who had been using their red holiday cups as a canvas, last December Starbucks invited customers to share their designs on Instagram.
From Illinois to Indonesia, Pennsylvania to Korea, Dubai to Ontario, in just eight days, Starbucks received more than 1,200 individual submissions from 13 countries. Many of the images were featured in an online cup collection.
“We were surprised and inspired by the amount of incredible art submitted by our customers. The designs were beautiful, expressive and engaging,” said Dena Blevins, creative director, Starbucks Global Creative Studio. “We quickly realized there was potential to use the customer-created art for our holiday cups.”
Starbucks commissioned 13 of the most impressive designs and now they’re here, and they’re beautiful, and — just like the green cups that have already kicked off the holiday season — they’re meant to inspire unity and togetherness and remind the world that the holidays (and it’s not just Christmas) are all about us putting aside our differences and drinking peppermint-based coffee concoctions until we literally can’t even anymore.
(Via Eater)
