Senior Project: A Study in Branding & Identi-tea

* Application Book

* Tea Bags (3)

* Mocks for the wall

* Wallpaper to jazz up the wall a bit

* Mugs (2-3)

* Business Card

Inspiration and progress.

Completed heat-sensitive mug in action!

Jay, creator of The Smug Mug.

Things are about to heat up around here . . .

Taking the original logo, a new thicker logo, and merging the two in order to create a line weight that worked with the type yet varied within the drawing itself. Application tests.

Attempt to marry type with line weight of the logo drawing & application.

Look at interiors and get a feel for what The Smug Mug building would look like. Create mocks of the interior, as well as mocks of the logo applied to things found on graphicburger.

Facial tests and colour palette exploration.

It was suggested that I expand on the faces, and create an ideniTEA system that describes the before & after of each type of tea.

Reflect: What was made so far? What has worked / didn’t work? Questions / comments from others that have been valuable? Memoriable info / strong disagreements? General feelings about the project so far?

Makes So Far:

Mug / logo / applications

Tea bags / refining brand language

Menu

Sketches of other faces to apply to tea bags

Write-Up:

When I first started this project, something that didn’t work for me was the language of the brand with Make 1. I made it my mission through Make 2 to better establish a language that matched with my logo design. Through that process, I learned to think deeper about my design(s) and consider different avenues that I didn’t address when I first began.

Once I addressed this problem, my work flowed more easily and came together with more success. What has worked for me was my initial intention of the project so far: making a brand system that made an impression (and most importantly a lasting impression) on other people. I have received positive reactions to my work, and my Makes so far have caused excitement among my peers.

I have received very valuable feedback from the others. One piece of advice that really stuck with me was the idea of branching off further with my concept--not only having a “Smug Mug”, but other faces and emotions as well to broaden the spectrum / audience. Having peer feedback also helped me to explore ideas that I initially didn’t (and quite possibly never would have) considered exploring in the first place.

So far I have not had any strong disagreements with any ideas brought forth by my peers--any and all information has been very inspiring and helpful to me not only with this project, but as a designer in general. We have completed only four Makes so far, but I feel I am growing and learning a lot already through this process.

1. Motivation/Purpose Why did you undertake this work?

I wanted to create a fun interaction between user and design, and play with creative application. 2. Core Question/Problem/Concept What is the main point of the work? What are you considering? 

The question I came up with was: Why should people care about the branding / packaging of something they’ll only end up throwing away? I want to create a final system that is fun, unique, and will hopefully answer this question. 3. What is your main argument? What are you exploring?

Thinking in terms of my core question, there are so many people who use a product without even thinking about or caring for the design of the brand / packaging. Whenever I get excited about a brand, people think I’m weird. It is something that mainly designers think about and appreciate, and with the brand I am making I want to spread that appreciation to others. 4. What is the precedent / background for your project? What is the context your project lives in?

My project is designing for an imaginary tea shop in London that is both unique and spicy / sassy. When I started this project, all I had was a name for the shop. I built up the logo from there, and then branched out to a few concepts that have become a bit more defined over the past two weeks. 5. What methods did you use in your process / exploration?

When I created the physical objects, I explored quite a lot. I got creative with the limited materials I had to transfer the logo design to the mug, and I had to find a way to make “dummy” tea bag clips. There was a lot of problem solving, making things by hand, and trial and error. 6. What materials were used?

Mug, Sharpie (black and blue), print outs of my design, a stencil, polymer modelling clay that can be baked in the oven to harden, tea bags. 7. What was the nature of your studio experiments? (AKA weekly makes)

To get an idea of the physical objects, rather than having them just be something on a screen. The first make crit was very helpful with finding a direction for my branding, and to better bring out the character of the shop. With each week I am hoping to better define, sculpt, and finesse a collection of items as my final product. 8. What did you learn?

When I create fun things at home just for the heck of it, I would think of something that I find to be a neat idea and then just make it. With the two weeks of Makes so far, I have learned to delve deeper. I did lots of research, created things that weren’t up to par that did help to get to the next step up, my classmates help me think deeper about the character of the brand, and it is so much fun watching something that started with just a name branch out and grow into something so much more each week. 9. How does this project relate to your greater interests? How does this project relate to your other work?

I really enjoy unique, fun, and interactive design (may it be something that is a game, a clever brand, etc.) I had once created a volvelle based off of BBC’s Sherlock. I had gone beyond the parameters and designed a book of cases that could be solved using the volvelle. It was fun and interesting to make something so interactive and unique, and I loved how it had such a creative application. I let my classmates test it out, and they had so much fun with it. With my current project, I want to create a brand system that has a reaction much like the volvelle. I want the user to interact, appreciate, and enjoy the design. 10. What is the subject matter of your project?

An imaginary tea shop brand.

11. Who is your intended audience?

Fun, creative people who love a sense of humor and enjoy good quality tea without the typical posh / snooty tones. 12. What is it (describe physically/literally)

So far my project consists of: a mug, tea bag designs, a logo, design applications that I can’t create myself (or may create in future Makes), a language / character, and a style. 13. What does it do? What are the intentions of the piece?

Creates humour, further enjoyment of a product through design, interacts with the user (may it be through their appreciation for the design, or through a mutual character / demeanour). 14. Keywords related to your project:

Edgy, punk, spicy, witty, smug, tea, minimal, British humour, unique, playful, creative, interact. 15. A title for your project:

The Assignment: read “Furthermore” by Sam Potts. Free-write your own version of this piece.

“Furthermore” Free-Write