For nearly 180 years, Poland Spring has been synonymous with the Northeast, and now the iconic water brand is turning its aluminum bottle into a canvas that celebrates the region’s culture through the eyes of a local artist.

Poland Spring has partnered with Brooklyn-based illustrator, art director and educator Eugenia Mello to create the first artist-designed bottle in the company’s history. The limited-edition design brings together recognizable symbols from across the Northeast, blending baseball, city life, coastal landmarks and everyday moments into one colorful illustration.

The collaboration represents more than just new packaging. It tells the story of the region Poland Spring has called home since 1845, while spotlighting the work of a local creative whose illustrations are inspired by movement, culture and community.

“It was a really great project from the beginning because it had so many little Easter eggs,” Mello said. “Such as a lighthouse, lobster for Boston, and then fire hydrants sprinklers. It’s a Brooklyn thing to open the sprinklers.”

Every inch of the bottle offers something new to discover. Look closely and you’ll find baseball imagery woven throughout the artwork, iconic architecture, coastal references and playful nods to everyday East Coast life. Rather than creating one focal point, Mello designed the bottle so people could continuously notice new details every time they picked it up.

The collaboration is featured prominently in Poland Spring’s new “CEO of H2O” campaign starring Baseball Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr., further tying together the brand’s connection to baseball and the communities it has served for generations.

Building a visual puzzle

Although the finished product appears seamless, bringing together so many regional references into one design proved to be one of the project’s biggest creative challenges.

“It’s so hard,” Mello said. “It was like building a puzzle. It’s a collaboration with MLB, so we knew that baseball was pretty important. There’s a lot of baseball, even in non-baseball icons—like the Statue of Liberty has a baseball mitt.”

That puzzle became an opportunity to blend familiar landmarks with subtle details that represent everyday life across the Northeast. Baseball gloves, city skylines, neighborhoods, waterfronts and seasonal traditions all coexist throughout the artwork, creating a design that encourages viewers to slow down and explore.

Photo courtesy of Poland Spring
A local artist telling a regional story

Eugenia Mello is an Argentinean illustrator, art director, and educator born in Peru and now based in Brooklyn, NY. Mello has built a career creating illustrations that bring together architecture, people and landscapes through bold visual storytelling. Her work often explores rhythm, movement and the connections between places and the people who live there.

That perspective made her an ideal partner for Poland Spring’s vision of celebrating the Northeast through art.

Instead of highlighting one city or one landmark, Mello wanted every person across the region to feel represented by the bottle.

“I hope they see the icons,” she said. “But I love this idea that it’s not particularly about one particular place but about uniting a whole area.”

That sense of unity is at the heart of the collaboration. Whether someone lives in New York City, Boston, Portland, Maine, or anywhere in between, the bottle is meant to evoke a shared appreciation for the culture, traditions and landscapes that define the Northeast.

Celebrating the Northeast

Poland Spring, sustainably sourced from natural springs in Maine, has been hydrating communities across the Northeast since 1845 and remains the No. 1 selling spring water brand throughout New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine.

The company said partnering with a local artist reflects its commitment to celebrating the creativity and character that make the region unique. By turning its aluminum bottle into a work of art, Poland Spring hopes consumers see more than a bottle of water—they see pieces of home.

The collaboration also supports environmental conservation. Through Poland Spring’s partnership with 1% for the Planet, one percent of sales from the limited-edition aluminum bottle will benefit the Mahoosuc Land Trust, helping conserve and preserve watersheds for future generations.

Now available on store shelves across the Northeast, the Poland Spring x Eugenia Mello bottle serves as both a functional product and a celebration of the people, places and traditions that have shaped the region for generations.