Tea Packaging

For my Year 3 Semester 1 project last year I chose to create some tea packaging for my manager at my part time job. This gave myself 12 weeks to research, set a brief, create mock designs and the final design. This gave the opportunity to use my passion of tea and of packaging design in order to complete this project. During the twelve weeks I did a lot of research however when it came to creating the actual packaging I was overwhelmed with the task in hand with myself over thinking every step of the design process. I felt this lead to my final piece of work not up to my usual standard in which I am disappointed with. However as I am a perfectionist I will never settle for something until I am happy so I have now the chance to tweak the brief and redo my tea packaging design.

Old Packaging Design 

As my portfolio of all my work for this project is over 46 pages I have decided to include some snippets of the work to help show the background of my idea and the process.

Project Overview

I have been asked by the manager to design two types of packaging for a black and a green loose leaf tea that is sold in the store. This was originally set as a challenge for her to see my design skills as she was intrigued and to show what I have learnt in my product knowledge at work. The brief was open in that I had the choice of material, shape, colour scheme, content, graphics and the actual product. However after some research i found that my packaging was required by laws in the UK must be easy to read, have the best before date, weight of the product, how to use the product. list any warnings and not be misleading. 

Mandatory information and graphics

Due to the laws in the UK on food labelling and packaging the following information will feature on my design:

-      Product name

This will tell the consumer what product is inside the packaging. 

-      Use by Date and Batch code

This will tell the consumer when the product will expire, warning them when the product will lose its freshness. The batch code will help if there are any problems with the tea such as it the quality,  the batch number will help identify if it was that tea which was produced at the time or if it is a one off case.

-      Where it was packed

As the product will have information about the history and the origin of the tea, it is best to put where it was packed so they are not mislead.

-      Weight of product

The weight of the product will be displayed on the front to inform customers how much loose-leaf tea it contains.

-      How to brew

This will be an instruction on how to brew the tea either with a teapot or in a cup to make sure the consumer get the most out of the product.

-      Contact Details

The packaging will have the contact details on, for the consumer to get in contact of there is a problem with the tea, any feedback or suggestions to help improve the tea.

-      Ingredients

As they are only one ingredient that is used in the tea i have chosen to still contain this information on the packaging to not mislead the consumer.

Below is a list of all the other content and graphics that I will add to the design that is not lawfully needed:

-      Barcode

 This will be on the bottom of the packaging to make it easier to scan when the product is being bought.

-      Recyclable symbols

As other packaging has recyclable symbols I felt it is best to follow in their lead, as more consumers are aware with recycling.

-      Logo

This will be on the packaging to make it easier for the consumer to recognise the brand rather than just relying on the look.

-      History of company

Currently the history of the company is on all of the product as this helps emphasis the passion of the company and offers them an insight into the history.

-      History of tea

This will be on the back of the packaging in order to educate the consumer about the history of that particular tea in order for them to build a connection.

Packaging Analysis

Mind Map

Mood board

Colour Scheme

The colour swatches have been chosen by using a website where you get to choose the first colour then it helps you choose the contrasting colour. I chose for both designs to use contrasting colours as I felt that it would give the packaging an edgy modern look which the current company packaging lacks. The blue and orange palette is the colour scheme for the black tea whilst the green and pink is the scheme for the green tea.

Layout

Layout with sides

Layout dimensions 

Layout on computer

Mock Designs

Here below is the mock designs for the cannon and the packaging of the green tea. 

Cannon

Hand Drawn

Computer Sketch

Final Cannon

Packaging

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Final Designs

Here are the final designs of both the black and green tea. 

Black Tea

Green Tea

In the next couple of days I shall do another post about the updated versions of my tea packaging. 

Hello Again

First of all I should apologize for my non-existent blogging in the past year. There have been many reasons for my silence but it is mainly down to the fact that I wanted to focus on my last year at university, which in doing so has paid off with myself coming out with a 2:1 degree. Although I have finished uni since April, I have been busy working at my part time job that has taken up most of my time however last week I quit my job to focus on my future career in the graphic design industry. 

Since finishing work I have been busy catching up with tasks that I have been putting off in the last couple of months such as backing up my work on my hard drive. In the last few days I have started to draw and design a couple of things to get myself back into it before I start redoing work that I am not satisfied with.

Watch this space in the for my old/new work coming soon.

Brand Guidelines

Here are my brand guidelines that I created for this blog which was part of my coursework for last    year in semester two. I created the guidelines to go with my social media campaign to make sure that it all kept with the same theme. 

My week in Somerset (Part 2)

Waterside

Day 2- Bristol

After having such a surprisingly action packed day yesterday we decided to go for a stroll around Bristol. Due to it being sunday we didn't think there would be much to do as everything would be shut however when we walked over Prince Street Bridge we found the Balmoral docked by the M Shed. The Balmoral in my family means a lot as my granddad was a draughtsman in his younger years, which he helped design the Balmorals diesel engine. I learnt from my gran that the boat used to sail for day outings however not many tourists used it due to financial hardship and the "lovely" english weather.

After taking some photos of the Balmoral we then carried on walking by the docks. As we walked past the M Shed we saw that it was open. M Shed is a museum about bristol featuring bristol places, people and life in the city. I have never been in the M Shed before so it was an opportunity not to be missed. When you walk around the museum you can find various artefacts such as old milk bottles from the milkmen of Bristol or the old Bristol bus where you can hop on and listen to people talking about the past. 

Front of Bristol Bus

Back of Bristol Bus

M Shed 

M Shed Upper Floor

When we finished looking around the M Shed we decided to walk down to the S.S Great Britain restaurant to have a drink and a bite to eat. Along the way you can see the new building by waterside that will soon be flats, all the buildings are different shapes. We also passed a little building called Brunel's Buttery which my gran told me was renown for the bacon butty and has been going for over 30 years.

Electric Cranes

Matthew 

Birds Nest Matthew

After lunch Gran and I got a little ferry across the River Avon to the other side of the docks. On the way to the bus stop we walked past the Matthew which was sailed by John Cabot in 1497 to North America, the boat that is docked in the harbour is said to be a replica of the original. We the proceeded to walk by the water features outside At-Bristol. I love the planetarium there as the reflections on a nice day look amazing.

At-Bristol Planetarium

Reflections

After a busy day around Bristol we headed back home to catch the sun set behind Wales and managed to get another glimpse of the Waverley leaving Clevedon pier.

Sunset

Waverley Alight

Type Design

Recently I brought the book 'Creative Workshop' by David Sherwin, which has 80 challenges to test and sharpen you designs skills as well as helping you create work for your own personal portfolio. The main feature I like about the book is that is give you a time limit to complete the challenge meaning you are working against the clock to finish the task. The most recent challenge I undertook as Easy as ABC where you had to create each letter of the alphabet with any objects that you could find which at the end to the challenge meant you created your own typeface.

Before I got stuck into this task I decide to undertake in some research about typefaces. I found out that a typeface is a style of letters, numerals and punctuation, these are normally grouped in families. For example a typeface would be Helvetica whilst the font is regular, light, italic and bold. Type design is when you design and create a typeface. A typeface used to be measured by points.

The structure of the typeface is the 'graphic element' which builds the typeface to be different.  There are two types of stroke, this is the straight such as 'k, l, x' which can be horizontal or diagonal and the rounded such as 'c, o, s' which can be open or closed. Instroke and outstroke are terms that typographer used, instroke is when the you are writing the letter it started at the top like 'c, f' whilst outstroke is when you have to take the pen off the paper at the bottom of the letter such as 'g, j, y'.

Here is some more terminology that I found out whilst doing my research;

• Stem is a vertical stroke such as the 'm' has three stems.
• Spine is a centre stoke like an 's'.
• Ascender is a stem that is normally is higher than the x height such as 'l, b, d, h'.
• Descender is a stem that is lower than the baseline such as 'q, p, y, g'.
• Arch is when a letter has an arch like an 'n'.
• Bowl is a rounded stroke such as a 'p'.
• Tail is a trailing outstroke such as 'y'.
• Bar is a horizontal stroke such as 't'.
• Arm this is a horizontal stroke that is either at the top or bottom of a letter such as 'T'.
• Loop tail is a bottom of a loop such as a 'g'.
• Ear is a short stroke on the top such as a 'i'.
• Apices is an angled stoker at the top such as 'w' which has one apices.
• Vertices is an angled stoker at the bottom such as a 'v'

After my research I had an hour to now think of what object I wanted to represent each letter and how it would look. I decided that I wanted the background to be plain and the colour black so I used some black card that I had lying around my house to create the backdrop. Then I focused on the lettering being an object that I use everyday and was important to me. At first I choose to use my headphones but this proved to hard to get the wire stay in the place and you couldn't see the what letter it was. I then came up with the idea of using pencils as they are an important tool that I use to design all my work. The pencils looked great against the backdrop so I start taking the picture of the individual letter.

I am extremely pleased on how professional it looked and has inspired me to create my own typeface when I am next creating a poster as I feel it stands out. Below is a close up of one of the letters and the whole alphabet I created.

'G' 

Pencil Alphabet

My week in Somerset (Part 1)

Every summer for one week I go and stay with my gran who lives in Clevedon. When I stay we go out every day, this varies from bus rides around Bath to shopping in Bristol. With each day being different I get to learn different things about the area that my grans lives in and where my mum was raised, this also gives me a chance to use my camera. This year I travelled down to Bristol to meet my gran on a train in first class. Not only did I have a comfy seat for the 2 hour journey which actual feels like quarter of an hour but I also had a complimentary free drink just to make my ride that more enjoyable.

  

Day 1- Weston-super-Mare

White Flags

On the first day gran and I decided to visit Weston-super-Mare. Seeing that the both of us can't drive we took the 125 bus from Clevedon to the seafront of Weston. During the journey we happen to go past a couple of places that I used to go when I was little such as Cadbury Garden Centre, my grandparents and parents used to look around especially at christmas time when I went to visit Santa. We use to spend half a day there as the adults were avid gardeners whilst I was bribed by the chance of looking at the animals in the pet section and a bag of sweets at the end.

                          

                             Octopus

Mermaid

When we finally arrived at the seafront we decided to go to the see some sand sculptures on the beach that my gran had heard about however we got there we were a bit early, so we deiced to go for a wonder along the Marine Parade, this is when we saw kites in the sky. At first we thought the kites were to do with the Aquarium as they were next to the building and there were sea animals shaped kites. When we looked closer we found out that it was a two-day kite festival where they displayed different unusual kites and had kite displays. My favourite kite was the octopus as I loved colours used and how it was grand in size, whilst my gran preferred the mermaid as the way it moved in the sky mirrored how it would move in the sea. We were lucky as that day even though it was very sunny it still was a bit windy perfect for the kites.

Happy!

Bright Kites

                                   Hollywood Sign

After spending some time looking at the kites we went to see the Weston Sand Sculpture Festival. This year the sand sculpture theme was Hollywood, this featured sculptures of paparazzi, the Oscars, film characters and the famous Hollywood sign. Now I must admit I wasn’t expecting much as it was in a small area that was cut off from view to the general public. However as soon as we paid our entry both gran and I were amazed at the height and detail of all of the sculptures. There was not one where we had to guess what movie a certain sculpture was from. By each sculpture there was information about the sculpture, the artist and what they did whilst at Weston.

                                                                                                           

Davy Jones

Hitchcock

Batman and the Hulk

After the sculpture we went for a walk along the Royal Parade until we go to Dr Fox’s Tearoom where we both had a hot chocolate. My gran was raving over the hot chocolate and wanted me to try one, now I am a bit of a hot chocolate expert but this was the first time I tried one with the chocolate on a stick and melting it in the hot frothy milk. This is one of the best hot chocolates I have ever tried and must say I will be back again. After this we went down by the marina then took a slow walk back to the bus station.

Pier

Sponsors Names

Waverley

I was exhausted by the time we got home, however I soon got excited when the Waverley sailed past close to my grans flat. It was a real treat to hear the paddles go round powering the steam boat. After the boat had gone the sun began to set and I managed to get some photos however I don’t feel my camera did the colours of the sky justice.

Sunset

Waverley silhouette

Sunset over Wales