soule tea
spring 2020 • brand, packaging, print & photography
Soule Tea was created for my senior capstone project at Northeastern University. I was inspired with the idea to create my own tea packaging when I studied abroad in London, England my first semester in college. I discovered so many different design styles and packaging that I had never seen in the States. This experience ignited my love for packaging and deepened my love for tea. From that point on I loved seeing different packaging designs and constantly thought about how I would design my own tea brand.
Creating the Soule Tea brand was a passion project. It allowed me to expand my craftsmanship through building boxes and to incorporate my love of painting and drawing. Not to mention, I was able to bring to life my vision for the perfect tea brand: a fun and quirky brand identity combined with an eco-friendly package design that encourages consumers to lead a more environmentally-sustainable lifestyle.
For this project, I developed a brand identity, illustration style, design packaging structure, and advertisement posters. In addition, I curated the photography sets, photographed the packaging, and edited all the studio photography.
about the brand
Soule Tea is a loose leaf tea brand focused on making the best tea possible without harming the planet. We believe in creating durable packaging that will look great in your kitchen. What’s more, all our ingredients are sustainable, organic, and backed by fair trade practices.
And don’t worry if you run out. All you have to do is bring your Soule Tea Bag to the local grocery store and refill your tea supply.
brand identity
For Soule Tea, I wanted to create a friendly, clean, and quirky brand. The logo was designed to be a refined twist on my signature of "soule" and used the typographic footprint of Tenso Italic to ensure the brand was cohesive. I chose the typeface Titling Gothic FB for the headings and larger text. I used lowercase for all the headings to convey a more down-to-earth tone. I paired Tilting Gothic with Tenso Family typeface for the other typographic hierarchies.
The other elements of the brand were the color palette, the illustration style, and the flavor patterns. While developing the packaging, I refashioned these three elements to work in concert to create a visual identity that was bright, colorful, and eye-catching.
packaging design
When I began designing the structure for the packaging, I wanted it to be easy to use while making the brand stand out from competitors. During my research for this project, I discovered the drawbridge box structure which has one side of the box fully open. I remodeled the original structure for the top to open as well. With two sides of the box able to open, the fastening of the box became a crucial feature. I added magnet clips to the top and side of the opening flaps to ensure easy yet secure fastenings.
I constructed the box using Japanese bookbinding techniques and supplies. After construction, working in gouache, I hand-painted a unique pattern for each tea flavor.
label designs
For the labels, I devised a deep full-color wrap label to complement the boxes’ unique construction and bright colorful exterior patterns. During the design process, I felt there was a missing element to the labels and I wanted to bring in a feature that tied the labels to the painted patterns on the boxes. So I created an illustration style and illustrations to showcase the ingredients. To the right of the wrap labels are the secondary labels. These labels were smaller and housed additional information like “How to Brew Our Tea” and the nutritional label.
poster designs
In addition to the brand identity system and the packaging design, I prepared two series of posters to advertise the brand. The first poster series was created to hang in local supermarkets to introduce customers to a new brand and highlight the five different flavors. The second series of posters was designed for larger public spaces like public transportation stations. Using concise, clever copy and bold photography, I aimed to catch the eye of potential customers passing by.
photography style
Another big part of this project was the photography style. I wanted to use my knowledge of studio lighting and art direction to create an interesting and unique visual style for all of the photographic marketing materials.
I photographed the boxes in two ways. The first approach was creating compositions with only the boxes. I wanted the photography to convey the personalities of the boxes and make them come alive. The second approach was lifestyle photography. I curated props and gathered each flavor's ingredients to show the teas in use and build an environment that spoke to the brand's values.
if you would like to read more, please check out the brand book that I created!