“I was changing my strings on the bed and I had all this garbage when I was done. My daughter said, ‘You should really do something about that’”: Why are D'Addario strings color-coded? CEO Jim D'Addario reveals the story behind the innovation

The surname D'Addario is, by now, inextricably linked to guitar strings. Among its many ventures and innovations is the system of color-coding strings, which D’Addario CEO Jim D'Addario reveals was inspired by an eco-conscious comment made by his daughter.

“In the early 1990s, a package of strings had an envelope for each of the six strings – a paper envelope for each one, identified for each note, in a vinyl pouch with a fancy label,” D'Addario tells Billboard. “So there was a minimum of eight pieces of packaging; sometimes there was a little advertisement as well.

“My daughter Amy was in high school, and they were studying environmental friendliness and recycling and packaging, and I was changing my strings on the bed and I had all this garbage when I was done. She said, ‘You should really do something about that, that’s really criminal, you’re putting so much junk in the waste-stream just to change a set of strings.’

The Story Behind D'Addario's Colored Ball Ends | Jim's Corner Ep. #6 - YouTube

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D'Addario took Amy's observations to heart – which led to a bona fide light bulb moment. “I came up with a system of color-coding the ball end on the string a different color, then coiling those together in one corrosion-resistant plastic bag and having them color-coded, so the silver one is this note and the brass one is this note.”

The CEO notes that the simple yet impactful solution eliminated “75% of the packaging,” saving “billions of trees” and “millions of pounds of carbon not released into the atmosphere” over the years. A handy branding by-product was the fact that this color-coded system made D'Addario strings instantly recognizable.

“That was one of the things that distinguished our strings. That’s one way we can tell onstage if our strings are being used. Otherwise, it’s very difficult. You can put branding on the package but when they’re playing on stage you can’t see it.”

Adding to their extensive list of offerings, D'Addario has just released the XPND Pedal Power Battery Kit – a rechargeable and wireless pedalboard power supply equipped with a 10,000mAh battery for over 10 hours of playtime between charges.