Earl R. Dean (March 19, 1890 – January 8, 1972)[1] designed the famous contour Coca-Cola bottle.[2]
In 1914, Harold Hirsch, a lawyer for the Coca-Cola Company, came up with a plan[3] to launch a national competition in which bottle manufactures across the country would be asked to design a distinctive bottle – a bottle which a person could recognize even if they felt it in the dark, and so shaped that, even if broken, a person could tell at a glance what it was.[4]
The bottle manufacturer that won this competition was the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana. Inspired by a picture of a cocoa pod which was found in an encyclopedia at the Emeline Fairbanks Memorial Library, Earl R. Dean made a pencil sketch of the pod.[5]