Tea & Coffee Initial Research

T2 

T2 Shelves

At T2, we’re about reinventing and reimagining the humble tea leaf, and sharing our teas with anyone who’ll listen. We’re inspired by the people we meet, and the far-flung places we visit. We get a kick out of taking ancient tea rituals and reimagining them, bringing them to a modern tea table. Every cup we brew is a chance to make tea more enjoyable, more accessible and more experimental; it’s our opportunity to connect, understand and share with the world our love for a better cup of tea, everyday.

They make tea a vibrant, new and innovative concept, contrasting against the connotations assosiated with tea drinkers. The packaging focuses on simplistic but complimentry design, not only taking into consideration the way it will be presented on shelves but the actual tea itself.

These miniture pots are the perfect example of how the packaging, in format of a small tin, could be adapted by using minimal colour to still make an impact. These tins can be picked up and assembled together to make a mix and match style of gift for the recipient. In order to keep all of the tins able to do this they all consist of a similar minimalitic illustrative base design. Each design also had the logo embossed into the top of each tin, this is another way of altering the metal not only through the use of colour. 

T2 also use metal in another series of packaging, within this series the tins are larger, which is done so the products can be used after original use to be recycled. This is something the brief was keep on doing, as well as being reusable by using this technique T2 are keeping their brand name and visuals evident in the consumers’ homes long after the tea which has been purchased is gone. The tins information and decoration are all created using debossing of the metal. Alongside a re-colorations of the metal depending on the blend of tea inside, each pot is easily differentiated through subtle methods, adding a sense of luxury to the set.

John Lewis

John Lewis’ own brand of luxury teas were designed in a very traditional way, contrasting against the more modern designs of T2 packing their designs features curved tin pots. This is to resemble their cliental, the richer older person, as this is the traditional design they would be enticed towards. Each of the colors are muted and therefore blend in to the shelf, although this is mentioned in the brief as something that should be tackled the key colour themes from most of the initial research I have done show use of these dull tones; in attempt to visually imply a traditional and conservative nature, which the luxury market is aimed towards. Some of the less conventional teas are coated in ‘William Morris’-esc printed surface patterns, yet rather than visually exciting the audience it simply adds this already assumed ‘older’ demographics that they are in the right section. 

Whittard’s approach to packaging takes a slightly more modern approach. Whilst retaining the flora and fauna prints found in other ‘more established’ brands they embrace the idea of playing with composition. Through making the details of the artwork larger and debossed, the tins are made more modern, complimented by brighter colours than those on the shelves next to them they smaller tins stand out as being a happy medium, therefore opening themselves more open to a wider audience. The labels themselves retain a traditional manner, yet again contrasted with the use of a sans serif type, giving these further unusual mixes of what the audience can expect.

Harvey Nichols

Harvey Nichols use a timeless design for their own branded coffee tins, this is because of their varying cliental base. Harvey Nichols is known for their luxury products, which bring in a variation of younger hipster types wants the best and most elegantly designed products, and also the older generation looking for their luxury well designed familiar products. Through designing their products with this similar monochrome style with simplistic labels the designers are reaching out to both targets. Yet by doing so they create a product that could be found on any shelf of any supermarket not making the product stand out as luxury against their competitors on the same shelf.

Rare Tea Co. is a luxury tea brand that is sold in various department stores across the country. They in-fit with the style of other brands surrounding it, i.e. they have the same container structure as the Harvey Nichols own brand coffee, giving the audience a sense of familiarity. The colours used, once again are muted, and don’t say ‘Rare’ to me, only No.1 had a different colour scheme featuring the bright red, making the tin stand out. Although because this isn’t done across the whole brand the tin starts to look like it isn’t part of the same brand as the others. If different colours are used there should be a variation of such, this is something I will be experimenting with in my designs.

Brew Tea Co. is one of the best-selling teas in the luxury section. People respond well to the tea as it is linked to the visuals of a time where the target audience were branding of this product in their peak time visually resembles this branding now. Although because of this it takes away the visual links to luxury that are associated with this product. Compensated here with the colours used, although because of the matted cheaper materials they have been printed on they do not exactly represent the colours in the correct light they are trying to achieve. This is a consideration to take into play in my design process, colours can be used but if not used within the correct way they can hinder the design rather than aid it. I believe the design here is an interesting concept, by removing the visual literacy associated with luxury and traditional design they are creating exactly that.

Tiosk is a new brand of tea that was being released the day I went to visit Harvey Nichols, for me this was the most interesting tea in the section. Each of the teas were packaged in a cube, each of the cubes consisted of a similar base design, the only thing to change throughout was the colour variations, giving a simple change to each item gave much better brand consistency than any of the other products that I saw. The design itself being cubed draw a similar aesthetic to that in T2. Making me consider, in the design of my tin what shapes should I be considering to make the product stand out and modern, whilst still retaining luxury.