Once you’ve determined who will be drinking your tea, how they’ll be drinking it and where they’ll be buying it, you can show them that your tea is the perfect choice through thoughtful tea brand design. Let’s get visual At the core of any kind of brand design is creating a visual identity. This includes a color palette, a logo, fonts to use anywhere you communicate your brand through text (like on your website and your tea’s packaging) and a general style for the images you use. We’ve covered all of these aspects of branding in detail, so if you’re not familiar with them, take some time to read our posts on choosing brand colors, choosing the right fonts for your brand, how to communicate your brand through shapes and creating your comprehensive brand identity. collection of tea canisters with black and white labels and sans serif text Every design choice you make communicates something about your brand, even if that design choice is deliberately generic-feeling. Packaging design by it’s a DOG’s life When people think of tea, there are a lot of “stock images” that come to mind.
For many the word “tea” conjures up images of tea parties complete with frilly dresses and delectable finger sandwiches—sometimes with the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat seated at the table. photo of food and tea on a table with a stuffed white rabbit At Alice’s Tea Cup in NYC, the branding extends to the shop’s decor. Via The Dreamy Bunny multicolored tea box illustrated with imagery from Alice in Wonderland Even people who’ve never read Lewis Carroll’s famous work background remove service know enough to recognize Wonderland imagery when they see it. Packaging design by bera For others, it’s the Kermit meme. Kermit meme imagery for lipton Via Know your Meme And these aren’t the only images that automatically come to mind when people think of tea… it can also conjure up thoughts of sweet tea glasses sweating on a hot day or a historical event like the Boston Tea Party. It might make sense for your brand to play with this kind of “stock imagery” that comes to mind for so many, but don’t feel like you have to work with one of these.
Develop a brand persona that feels like it communicates your unique tea and the niche you’ve carved out for it. glass tea bottles with cat-shaped labels Alternatively, your brand can play with well-known images that aren’t traditionally associated with tea. Label design by CristianGarcia Take a look at Teavana’s branding for example. Teavana, which was acquired by Starbucks in 2012, found success in the late 1990s and 2000s as a mall-based brand offering upscale craft teas, tea blends and tea paraphernalia. abstract geometric image of a person sitting with a bowl Back when Teavana had physical storefronts, this logo meant you were entering a warm cave of drinkable comfort. Via requinx.com In their old logo, they communicated a sense of calm and wellness (two values often ascribed to tea) through a geometric person sitting cross-legged with a cup of tea. The warm coral suggests a vibrancy from consuming the tea, and the overall simplicity of the logo suggests a down-to-earth freshness. It says these aren’t processed, packaged teas; they’re natural loose leaf teas. All of these visual elements contribute to creating a well-rounded tea brand.