September Industry

Loving this identity work, made me put the kettle on : )

@Nik – Inception (the idea of putting the kettle on was planted into your head) ;)

@Chris – Indeed. Amazing what black, white and grey can do when used correctly ;)

My favourite part of the branding is the stationary, using a portrait DL for the comp slip looks proper slick amongst the LH and BC! And laser cut dots for production of the logo – now that’s perfection.

Beautiful work from the MB guys yet again.

@James – Slick would be an understatement – I couldn’t imagine the orientation of the comp slip any other way :) That’s one of the great things about the form of the logo – it lends itself well to creative use of printing and finishing.

@Miles – I’m sure those folks at MB have done their research. Besides, they clearly said that they wanted to avoid “a landscape dominated by brown/green colors, tea leaves and tree huggers.” I think “organic” fits under that umbrella as well. As for the word ‘Proper’ – most likely a British thing – tea has played an important role in British history and culture.

Tea can be designed as crazily or uncrazily as any other product or brand or service out there, its just that nothing really grabs you here other than the logo itself which is very clever especially when die cut obviously. the type and everything else just seem kinda too sleepy. Could use a ”whoa whats that thing!!!??” element somehwere. gorgeous logo though. seems very similar to Seed Magazine/design logo though. This logo actually relates to the process which is so nice — its viable and brilliant. Both are great.

@Kyle – It does indeed share a resemblance to the SEED logo but as you said: it relates to the process – no harm no foul :)

@Age – You make a valid point, there are many solutions out there that employ similar graphic and typographic treatments. That said, you can’t lose sight of what they were trying to achieve here in the first place:

“This monochromatic system again reflects the efficient approach of the new identity. This sets All About Tea apart from its competitors, in a landscape dominated by brown/green colors, tea leaves and tree huggers.”

I’d say they were successful, wouldn’t you?

@Luca – Each to their own ;)

Like the visual aspect of it, but the identity totally fails to even hint at the raw material they are dealing with. tea is an organic raw product with assosiations to tea time, japanese tea ceremonies etc.
I like their boldness in doing something in contrast to the competition, but you could still have the clean black and white without shredding it of all humanity and connection to tea itself.

Also, I find the notion of distance from “tree huggers” abit offending. I’m neither a tree-hugger nor big tea-drinker, but as tea comes from a tree (slash-bush), distancing itself from it is like distancing yourself from the very product you are selling, leaving you a wall street money broker, which in specialty drink/food is a bad move if you want confidence from your wholesale-accounts which wants quality in a product they themselves might be very passionate about.

@Nicholas

I do never comment neither, but I will re-do an exception.

Why a typeface should at least wink at the product it is referring to?

It seems pretty obvious to me.

Otherwise we merely showcase our typographical skills, doing design for design sake. But design is not art, ergo we would end up doing nice “exercises in style”, unrelated to the product, missing the ultimate goal of Graphic Design.

To support my point, let’s play “product-swap”.

If we change the steel tea filter with a (well designed) honey dropper, the word “TEA” with “HONEY”, the teacups with pots containing different variety of honey, the whole identity still works. The dotted circle is clearly the structure of a hive, and no more obvious associations with hexagons or bees(-huggers).

Again, if we swap the steel tea filter with a (well designed)pepper/spice dispenser, the word “TEA” with “SPICES”, the teacups with small pots containing spice samples, here we go again. The dotted circle is clearly and stylishly mirroring the holes arrangement e pepper dispenser, with no trivial associations to the Far Orient needed.

A labile identity or an uber-designed one?