Launching the Starbucks Artist Collaboration Program, the coffee giant partners with Toronto-based artist Tim Singleton, offering a bold, colorful drinkware collection inspired by pop culture, queer culture, and nostalgia, starting May 30 in U.S. and Canadian stores.
Singleton used electric shades of key lime green, citrusy orange, magenta, punchy cyan, vibrant pink, and a mixture of iconography for the collection. Singleton’s collection, exclusively designed for Starbucks, is a mix of pop culture, queer culture, and nostalgia with bold visuals and rainbow-bright colors.
According to Singleton, a lot of the work that he does focuses on queerness and how that has inspired him, both as a queer person and a gay man, and how he relates to the world with that.
The collection is the first in a series through the Starbucks Artist Collaboration Program, which celebrates and elevates the voices and stories of artists worldwide through uniquely curated merchandise in Starbucks stores.
The drinkware collection includes two 24-ounce plastic cold cups with glitter artwork and a 16-ounce stainless steel tumbler. A plastic cold cup is adorned with glitter, holofoil, flowers, and a hand making a peace sign while holding a heart.
Drinkware is Starbucks’ favorite promotional item. Starbucks came out with 10 Taylor Swift cups as part of its summer 2023 Tumbler collection. Each Taylor Swift era has a corresponding Starbucks tumbler with a unique color scheme based on her albums.
Last February, Starbucks Japan released a cherry blossom-themed drinkware collection dubbed Starbucks Japan Sakura Collection. The lineup includes a cherry blossom-designed stainless steel bottle, a violet and pink tumbler, and a pink stainless steel bottle, and some items perfect for cherry blossom viewing and picnics. The pink and purple-toned design allows customers to feel the beauty and fragility of the sakura.
Starbucks Japan’s Cherry Blossom-themed merchandise, which is released every Spring, draws worldwide attention.
Photo: Starbucks