Imagine a plastic cup and one particular red-wrapped variant will likely come to mind, designed in the 1970s by Robert Leo Hulseman, son of the Solo C

Jazz Cups: The Snazzy Paper Tableware Pattern that Encapsulates Early 90s Design

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Style Pass

2024-12-02 19:00:02

Imagine a plastic cup and one particular red-wrapped variant will likely come to mind, designed in the 1970s by Robert Leo Hulseman, son of the Solo Cup Company’s founder. In the realm of paper cups, there is a parallel icon — the dynamic “Jazz” pattern is also a classic, but its history and the artist behind it were largely a mystery until recently.

Today, the very 1990s-style teal-and-purple Jazz design can be found on t-shirts, sandals, bumper stickers and other fan-made merchandise. Originally, though, it was applied by the Sweetheart Cup Company to a series of plates, bowls and cups. Sweetheart has since been acquired by Solo, which in turn was acquired by the Dart Container Corporation, adding layers of complexity to the search for the pattern’s origins.

A few years back, users on Reddit started to crowdsource the question: who had designed this classic tableware pattern? A group of participants in the hunt took it upon themselves to write the company and ask, musing over the design in the midst of their message: “We can’t quite put our finger on what aspect of it is so visually pleasing to us. Is it the moderate, reserved use of white space? The liberal stroke of a blue as pristine as the clear warm waters of the Caribbean? The conservative dash of purple, haphazardly tracing the cup, as if to say, ‘I’m stylish, yet accessible’?”