Soda packaging design seems to be either ultra-polished or overly wellness-coded. Gap Tooth Soda, designed by Saint-Urbain, leans into personality in a refreshingly human way.
The design agency built a system that celebrates imperfection, using simple fruit illustrations that are slightly offbeat and playful. The typography is clean and direct, with an unfussy sans serif that lets the name sit confidently while giving the artwork space to shine. The illustrations feel almost like cut paper shapes, nodding to folk art and everyday creativity rather than polished commercial imagery. What makes this stand out is how it brings back the fun and personality of soda without relying on nostalgia, creating something that feels current and charming.
Gap Tooth Soda is a Toronto-based botanical soda brand built on a simple but overlooked idea: imperfection can be a strength.
Named after founder Owen’s gap-toothed smile, the brand begins with something deeply personal. What was once treated as something to hide — zipped lips, self-conscious smiles, daydreams of perfect symmetry — became the foundation for a different point of view. Perfect teeth don’t taste better. Perfect products aren’t more interesting. And perfection, as it turns out, is wildly overrated.
Nearly a quarter of the global population has a natural gap between their teeth — yet it’s rarely something celebrated. Gap Tooth Soda reframes that idea, turning a common “flaw” into a symbol of individuality, character, and confidence.
In a beverage category defined by polished minimalism and sameness, the brand offers an alternative: something more human, expressive, and alive.
Developed in partnership with Saint-Urbain, the project extends beyond packaging into a full brand world designed to scale across flavors, formats, and future touchpoints. The identity leans into asymmetry, expressive typography and illustrations, and offbeat composition, with graphic “gaps” appearing throughout as a subtle but recurring motif.
At the center of the system is a cast of hand-drawn characters — each with their own imperfect, exaggerated grin. The fruit illustrations follow the same logic: slightly irregular, playful, and full of personality, rejecting hyper-real or overly polished food imagery in favor of something more character-driven and human. Together, these elements create a flexible visual language that can expand naturally as the brand grows.
Packaging becomes the primary storytelling surface. Bold color blocking and graphic compositions give each of the three launch flavors — Cherry, Yuzu, and Peach — its own distinct identity, while still forming a cohesive and highly recognizable presence on the shelf.
“Most brands in this space are trying to look perfect,” says Alex Ostroff, founder and creative director of Saint-Urbain. “We were more interested in what happens when you embrace the opposite — something with character, something a little off.”
Gap Tooth Soda isn’t just a product — it’s a shift in perspective. A reminder that the things we’re taught to smooth out are often the things that make us interesting in the first place. Gap Tooth Soda is available direct-to-consumer at drinkgaptooth.com and is now offering wholesale distribution across Ontario.
