“I did a lot of designs but this one particular seems to have some staying power and now it’s got its own life online.”Įkiss worked at the Sweetheart Cup Company in Springfield, Missouri, from 1987 to 2002, before the company was bought by Solo and moved their art department to Baltimore. “My family and everybody just kind of grew up with the fact that I did it,” she explained of her masterful design.
It took the serious sleuthing of one local Missouri reporter, Thomas Gounley of the Springfield News-Leader, to track Ekiss down after stumbling across a Reddit page hoping to locate the “graphic designer who made the ‘jazzy 90s’ image that appeared on millions of paper cups.” “I’m just still pretty stunned about the whole deal,” Ekiss, 50, told ABC News of her shocking new celebrity status online. Meet Gina Ekiss, the original artist of the masterful design who now lives a quiet life with her family in Aurora, Missouri. The creative genius behind the snazzy neon-colored logo, however, remained a mystery for the most part - until now. The retro design, appropriately called “Jazz,” has been immortalized on tons of fun merchandise from T-shirts to sneakers, bicycle helmets and nail art, to name just a few. But 23 years after the cups were introduced, we can appreciate this gnarly nostalgic design for what it is: pure throwback perfection.