My love affair with tea packaging continues. First we had Tea: Beautiful Packaging, to the art of boxing and bagging. Of course, there were many more fine examples than would fit in one post, hence part two. Voila!
By the way, if you’re interested in keeping a tea-log or finding new flavours/brands on which to sup, Steepster is a wonderful community site to check out!
Kaffe 1668 is a New York coffee house with its own line of teas. Designer Megan Cummins brought the 20+ teas to life in a prescriptive style.
Dr. Stuart’s (extraordinarily good tea) was designed by one of my favourite design studios, Pearlfisher, who seem to turn every piece of packaging into gold.
Teahugger’s clean and simple boxed were designed by Brian Peters. The name is adorable too!
New Zealand is the new home for a 4,000-year-old Chinese Oolong tea. For the first time ever Oolong tea has been grown outside Asia. Brand agency Designworks (my old crew) developed the name, brand and packaging for ‘Zealong’ – positioning it as a tea of the very highest quality.
T2 is a gorgeous Australian tea and tisane brand. The packaging is bright, bold and dripping with personality. On the T2 site you can even find a tea to match your zodiac sign (I’m going to presume Scorpio is not nettle tea).
I’m lucky to admire a few of the boxes every day in our kitchen. I’m enamoured with their ’single serve’ hand woven plum blossom green teas, and sheer muslin tea bags. When combined with one of their glass teapots, you’ve got the perfect gift for any connoisseur or design nerd. Oh, hint hint!
Tea, the drink of choice for queens the world over, is also the king of beautiful packaging. I’ve been digging around and saving my favourites.
Here is an Orla Kiely designed tin for Bewley’s:
Kiely says of her bright box – “Bewley’s was an important sanctuary to me as a student living in Dublin and I am delighted to be working with them as they are an iconic Irish brand. We chose one of our signature prints – the ‘Scribble Stem’ in a classic red and cream with bright chartreuse contrast lid. We hope our tea caddy will add a flash of colour and become a treasured feature in the kitchen.”
English brand Clipper uses hand drawn type and illustration to showcase their natural flavours:
French brand Chateau Rouge, uses an object (which has relevance to name or the flavour notes) to identify each tea:
Mallard make the cutest takeaway cups – featuring whimsical patterns and a cute teapot silhouette:
“Mallard is a specialist tea company which sells loose leaf tea through its shop and tearoom in Knutsford. The mix and match branding is inspired by the eclectic feel of the establishment which is quirky, eccentric and unmistakably English.”
Andrews & Dunham sell loose tea in beautifully designed little tins – I love this elephant Ceylon one:
Finally, origami tea bags from Russia. Not strictly packaging bu whatevski – they are beautiful! The bird apparently forms and unfolds gradually while the tea infuses.
It seems those on the European side of the pond are miles ahead of the pack when it comes to injecting a little charm into their tea boxes!
What brand of tea do you drink? Does it keep it cute ‘n loose? Tight and tinned?
It seems those on the far side of the pond are miles ahead of the pack when it comes to injecting a little charm into their tea boxes!
Using video to showcase fashion and related design work is a burgeoning trend. These are not so much “viral” videos, rather films (and motion graphics) that build presence, reflect a brand’s personality and champion offerings in a fresh way. As the Business of Fashion says, it is about “creating reverberations amongst the press and consumers”.
I feel like we’ve all seen the standard interpretations like Gareth Pugh’s film that was launched in tandem with his AW09 collection. So I’ve put together a few alternative examples of ways brands work with motion:
HAIR, THERE AND BACK AGAIN
[New Zealand hair salon] Stephen Marr “teamed up with Auckland’s top fashion design talent to present Belle du Jour, a collection of six drop-dead looks for the ball season.”
The result is a time stopping to-and-fro that reminds me of Toshiba’s Time Sculpture advertisement.
I like this way of creating anticipation and desire for the physical paper product, rather than just slapping it up as a 2D flippable flash file. A few thousand people have viewed it so far, not too bad… and rather tempting to buy.
REALITY RETAIL
UK retailers ASOS lets you view clothes using a quick ‘catwalk’ video for each garment.
Thank god – you can finally see that cute jumpsuit has a saggy ass (a harem onesie, really?)… Video – saving women the world over horrified disappointment! This feature definitely builds trust.
SHOW STOPPING ANIMATION
When it comes to fashion animation, who can forget Heal Fashion Lab’s quirky look book. Experience the full out by going to their collections page and popping your headphones on.
I have so much love for that lobster dress and the pinching limbs I think my heart might burst. Local Auckland brand Skylark Boutique also uses animated gifs on their splash page – adding movement and a bit of intrigue.
THE TRAILER FOR THE FILM OF YOUR LIFE
Not quite a fashion brand – it’s a blog! But there’s a promo video! I found this tidy little number used to promote IMBOYCRAZY.COM incredibly clever.
Groundbreaking. How many other blogs out there have a timeless video calling card? (As an aside, it’s a fabulous site well worthy of some serious browsing. Totally stuffed with smart, realistic advice from girl who reallydoes know where you’re coming from.)
VIDEO KILLS
I see many extensions of video – Etsy sellers promoting themselves with crafty little clips, more bloggers producing timeless promo clips, make up artists peddling their ways through new expressions (the We Have Band video comes to mind – it was made by an ad agency, was there a chance for endorsement?).
Yep, if you approach them from a slightly different angle, videos are incredibly effective tools for building brands. They can be used to:
Inform – Answer questions like ASOS does – ‘how does this garment sit?’ etc. Keep asking, what what do consumers really want to know?
Inspire – create fantasies, test the limits of your product or consumer’s imagination. Give me a taste of the benefit.
Engage – with a video you become multidimensional. Why not give your brand a soundtrack, an aural hook that people will associate with you forever?
“Video is an extremely powerful tool in building the designer’s brand, providing backstory and context, as well as demonstrating how pieces fall, flow and move. Video provides deeper context and heightens detail in a way that images alone cannot.”
Finally, video is extremely accessible. With faster broadband connections and higher quality video equipment available to all, why not test a few ideas out? The sky is the limit!
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Damien Vassart is a French photographer, based in Paris. I love every single shot I’ve seen so far – moody long exposures of hard-edged architectural features.
Pandora has written a great introduction to the art of William Blake (in English & French). I was lucky enough to see a Blake exhibition at Tate Liverpool this year and it blew my mind. Luminous.
Big dreams? Do read this inspiring speech by Anna Wintour for the 2003 Fashion Institute of Technology Commencement, posted by Miss Couturable.
I shop, therefore I am? Disputable. Check out this interview with Neil Boorman, a man who burnt all of his branded possessions. He is now living brand free. (This totally reminds me of one of my favourite books – William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.)
Cool retail design at Jeanette’s – look at the pics! I love the mishmash of door frames to get into this store (guarded while closed with a roller door).
There’s no brand like WTF – a fresh take on making a mark vs. good design.
Toby Morris is a Kiwi illustrator/comic artist on the loose in Amsterdam. Xtotl is a travel diary of sorts – insightful and funny!
VentureBeat brings us Five Rules For Getting Your Ideas Off The Ground – insights from smart cookies at places like Google Creative Labs and Threadless. Engage, share, prioritize, reason, and drive.
Names that Zag – a guide to developing strong brand names, with examples! Also from Neutron is Brand Illustrated – a “lighthearted look at the relationships among marketing roles”. If you’re a brand geek like me you should definitely subscribe to their always valuable updates!
An example of using the miniaturising tiltshift technique in video (mute the video, and throw on a dreamy track like Air’s Mike Mills).
An online archive of the influential design magazine, Emigre.
Stella McCartney has created a series of short films to tie in with her exclusive Net-A-Porter collection. Magnolia Tree, Island, Poem, Kites. Beautiful soundscapes, ethereal images. [Thanks Miles!]
