Tea Packaging and Musings on Design

Kusmi from Paris, produces Russian-style teas. Established by Pavel Michailovitch Kousmichoff, 1867 in St Petersburg, Russia, the company blends teas from China, India, and Ceylon with aromatics like lemon, bergamot, lime, mandarin orange and flowers. A  colorful tin canister is a big part of the tea experience. Packaging like this, that sits on  the table, allows the user a chance for reflection on the product experience. Instead of immediately throwing it away - you would probably re-use it.

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Tea Forte - not sure of the designer, but whoever you are this is lovely.

The tea packaging from Tea Note Japan.

Sugart iTea Wand micro-perforated stick-pack for loose tea won material supplier Alcan Packaging a Gold Award in Packaging Excellence. Source: Packaging World

 

 

Harney & Sons tea

 

STUDENT WORK:  This packaging was hand made and assembled by Gabe Re for a package design class as part of his BFA. The pattern was lacquer transfered to green paper. They come in a package of four so placed back-to-back all the little pyramids would nest together to make a larger pyramid.

 

WDARU design studio has created a series of creative tea bags that look like little people with different personalities. Maum tea bags fit most common cup sizes and come packaged inside beautiful tea boxes.

Concept designed by Natalia Ponomareva from Russia. Each creative tea bag looks like a beautiful origami bird.

Musings regarding how get a client to trust me that the design I have done is a perfect fit for their target market: I was looking the other day at some student work and wondering why all the student work was so beautiful and original. It suddenly occurred to me that it was because the designer was allowed to do the design. This does not occur much in real life. Generally the first concepts are the choice of the designer, and then the revisions are for client input, and the more people involved in the input the more diluted the original design becomes, often resulting in something quite a departure from the original design.

It is frustrating for designers, because their wealth of knowledge training and experience isn't trusted. Clients often feel that a logo, website or stationery needs to resonate with them. Not true. The most important thing is that the design resonates with the target market. Designers are trained to read the target market needs, research and developing visual cues to entice the buyer to part with his or her cash as a result.

Often in small business the needs of the client becomes part of the brief, and rather than stepping outside their own needs and and into the mind of the target market the design becomes about the client and their need for input and placing a mark upon the world.

The number one factor in ensuring the success of your brand is that you appeal to your customer and that the customer wants that product. New identities and websites need to appeal to the target market, whether or not the design resonates with the client or not, it MUST resonate with the end consumer.