OUGD603 / Extended Practice - Brrrew Iced tea: Visual research.

OUGD603.

Brrrew Iced tea. 

Visual research. 

Today I did some more visual research online. As a made in Yorkshire / Yorkshire rooted Ice tea, I began to think about the idea of tradition, and how I could incorporate this into my work, like Yorkshire tea, but in a more modern sense. I started looking into traditional typography and how this could be included in my logo. 

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I also found a great typography board on pinterest with all sorts of inspiration in terms of traditional typography:

Pinterest board

What I felt the logo needed:

- To give a nod to the tradition of tea. 

- A hand crafted feel to communicate the process of making the tea in Yorkshire. 

- An implication that the tea is made for cold brewing not hot. 

- To be bright and refreshing. 

With these four focus points in mind, I came up with 5 different logo ideas:

The first has the largest focus on process and a traditional aestetic, using a block type with a screen printed effect to simply communicate the name 'Brrew'

The second takes the original logo and furthers its ability to communicate the 4 points above. Added is some small illustrations of icecles. I wanted to add quite an obvious indicator to the packaging that the tea was iced. This is a new product intergrating into the U.K market that will be placed alongside hot tea. I don't want people to be confused and assume that it is a hot tea. 

For the third logo, I tried using a completely different typeface inspired by 'Bello'. I thought that a chunky script font such as this would appear colloquial, approachable, welcoming and friendly. I was also inspired by the idea of ice tea, as a cold drink being thirst quenching and refreshing, hence the bursts of droplets. 

next I tried the second typeface again but incorporating one of the previous illustrations of icecles. However I felt that this combination didn't work very well together. 

Of the 4 logo designs I had come up with so far, the first two were definately my favourite, I felt that they were more attractive, appropriate and relative to the idea of a Yorkshire based tea.

OUGD603 / Extended Practice - Brrrew Ice tea: Visual research and development.

OUGD603.

Brrrew Iced tea. 

Visual research. 

I was inspired by the idea of Yorkshire tea using a range of realistic illustrations nodding towards scenic Yorkshire for background work on their packaging. Although I don't picture my project using exactly the same style as this precedent, I feel that relating the product back to its roots, of Yorkshire will give a more honest and authentic portrayal of the brand. Living in Yorkshire Myself, I thought what better way to collect source imagery first hand by going out and taking my own photographs of the sites which I live in. I will then if necessary look for imagery else where. 

On my research visit I went to 3 different locations to take photographs as I had to keep in mind cost and time, and the hours of sunlight in which were appropriate to take photos. 

First location - Shibden valley:

Second location- Denholme / Oxenhope:

Third location - `Ogden waters:

I looked at the images I had collected and decided to pick out 4 that I thought were most different from each other for my packaging. Therefore there would be 4 different visuals for the 4 different flavours in the collection. 

Below are the four images chosen for the collection. It doesn't matter so much which image is paired with which flavour as the photographs are not relevant to the flavours, but to the origin of the product. Each photograph / future illustration has a different emphasis on something about Yorkshire. 

Emphasis on trees. 

Emphasis on open water.

Emphasis on rolling hills. 

Emphasis on farm life.

Although currently Brrew has a similar aesthetic possibility to the original Yorkshire tea, I want to try and steer away from this by employing a completely different illustration style. 

Yorkshire tea illustration style:

Highly detailed, realistically coloured, photograph style illustration. 

An idea I had was to create block illustrations in a range of shades of one colour per box (yellow for lemon, pink for raspberry) and also give them the appearance that they have been screen printing. As a product with strong Yorkshire roots, company originating and product made here, I wanted to create an aesthetic that appeared very much hand crafted. 

For this reason, after I have created vector illustrations. I hope to take them into photoshop to try and give them a screen print look-a-like finish. 

In the meantime I went looking for inspirational illustration styles:

This illustration shows how a similar pallet of colours can be used in a variety of ways to create a really interesting and captivating illustrations. It shows the effetiveness of inversion and opacity. These are tools to consider playing with when creating illustrations 

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Dieter Braun.

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Bill O'neill

This is a great illustration I found online that shows almost exactly, the type of illustrations I was talking about previously. Taking a set of 5/6 colours, of similar tone (earth) and apply these in layers. If I were to apply this style to my work, I would prefer to use all one colour in 5/6 shades, eg. make the sky in this image a lighter shade of orange brown, and the clouds more so. 

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Again this illustration has used a small pallet of colours, however in contrasting colours to make the illustration appear dramatic. As the focus of my illustrations are Yorkshire scenes, I want them to appear peaceful, however be brought to life by a combination of shades of one bright colour. 

I had also talked about how I might want to apply a screen print affect to the illustrations in photoshop. I felt that the small imperfections found in screen printing add to the beauty of the process and of a process hand done by man. It is this that I wanted to emphasise in my work, fabricating the idea of a hand printed design and pursuing the aesthetic of a hand crafted product. 

However the above illustration seems as though it has been intentionally designed to look hand rended and has taken the process much further than I would wish to in terms of imperfections. 

The above illustration however has been edited to include subtle editions of the screen printed effect and seems much more appropriate to the subtle nod this design needs towards hand crafted process.

OUGD603 / Extended Practice - Brrrew Iced tea: Tactile tea examples.

OUGD603.

EXTENDED PRACTICE.

Brrrew Iced tea. 

After looking online I found that only a few companies did a range of cold brew teas. Ones that I discovered included Liptons, Celestial tea, Twinings and Whittards. I think a large importance of branding an Ice tea brand will be to make it stand out on the shelf. Ice tea is an undiscovered drink to many in the U.K, and so when placed alongside regular tea it needs to stand out. I felt like the packaging implemented by these companies wasn't particularly eye catching. Although I do enjoy the branding for whittards, this is a chain premium tea shop with a completely different audience to the supermarket tea shopper I will be designing for. 

I also found that whilst looking for examples of tea, there are two types of cold brewing teas you can get, tea bags or loose. More reasonable brands such as Lipton's and Twinings sell their Iced tea in bags, where as Whittards sell their iced tea loose. By selling iced tea loose, this requires the consumers to purchase the relevant equipment to brew and filter the tea. When trying to catch peoples attention with a new brand, I think that it would be off putting to offer a new product that requires the consumer to spend £30 more on equipment to use it. I also think that one of the great things that people love about tea is the convenience, simply popping a teabag in a mug, letting the teabag mash, as some said they enjoyed, and then adding any extras, ready to drink. The great thing about cold brewing ice tea bags is that, they require no use of the kettle, meaning saving on electricity. Some may choose to make larger quantities and place this into the fridge, if they drink tea very regularly, or some may wish to place their cup in the freezer for a few minutes to chill, however both these electrical items are running regardless. 

Equipment sold at Whittards for Ice tea brewing:

Tactile Tea examples.

After coming up with a new idea of creating a range of tea for home brewing, I went out to the super market to look at design that already exists. I found, of the supermarkets I went to, none of the brewing teas on the shelves were meant to be made cold. However I did find looking at the current range of designs useful.

Instead of looking for designs particularly linked with Iced tea, I looked for designs that stood out on the shelf, and caught ones attention. I also kept an eye out for any Yorkshire based teas to look at how they had been branded.  

I picked up on Clippers tea purely due to how welcoming and friendly the tea appreared. The packing makies the brand appear down to earth whilst being informal. This message is due to the hand drawn style that combines both the Illustrations and typography. Because of this Clipper almost appears like the underdog to teas such as Tetley and Yorkshire tea. 

Tea pigs stood out to me as it was different to any other tea packaging on the shelf.  I did however feel that this packaging created a barrier between itself and the others, and offered itself to niche customers. This however could be subject to change the longer that the tea stays on the shelf. However I do nod to the designer whom worked on the product as it does stand out on the shelf, and this is what a new product needs to do. Something to consider is also, do I want the customer to be able to see the product inside? This could be a good idea with a new product that is not readily availinle on the current U.K market, to show people that essentially iced tea bags look just like normal tea bags which may take away any hesitating about purchasing the product. 

Tetley's is the largest Tea company in the U.K, however I don't find the packaging to be very eye catching. The reason it is so popular is not from its ability to attract customers via aesthetic, but because of customer loyalty. Tetley's tea came onto the British Market 61 years ago in 1953, at this point due to the finish of rationing from WW2 there were not many tea brands on the market. It is important that as a completely new product on the market, it is able to attract people aesthetically. 

Pukka was one of my absolute favourite packaging examples on the shelves. I felt that it really stood out due to its simplicity and consistency, which ultimately leads to its effectiveness. Pukka uses a constant illustration pattern, which is altered slightly in form and wholly in colour in order to reflect the change in flavour. This also means that the brand is very recognisable as many shoppers will search for the pattern. The branding also breathes a contemporary and minimalist theme, as although the pattern used is quite hectic, there is a very small pallet of colours used on each box, this thought of minimalism is continued via the logo and type choice which completely disregards any ornament.

The Tesco's finest teas use a similar aesthetic approach to Pukka teas, Using illustrative patterns and small pallets of colour that differentiate due to flavour change. The difference is in the audience, it is easy to see from the logo and the use of the word 'finest' that Tesco are aiming their product at those who are indeed looking for a finer tea, which would not be my audience. I want the ice tea to appear proud, Yorkshire born, friendly and somewhat relatable to traditional tea. However I do applaud the use of colour and form. Using contrasting colours and a well thought out form, allows the packaging to stand out on the shelf, such as the orange and green colour scheme above. 

Yorkshire tea has a very recognisable aesthetic that has grown with the tea over the past 140 years. Yorkshire tea uses true to life illustrations of picturesque Yorkshire itself.  The packaging appears welcoming and friendly and is a faithful go to for many tea consumers, in which when drinking the tea can imagine themselves sitting with the rolling hills of Yorkshire. Yorkshire tea also uses a colour code to distinguish between different blends, whilst the original uses bright orange as its striking colour, the gold blend uses gold foil, and hard water edition uses green. The illustration behind is also swapped out on each different blend to reveal a piece of Yorkshires stunning scenery.