Starpack: Raritea Final Resolution & Evaluation

The ‘Raritea’ brand created in collaboration with Shelley Huang brings together our skills and specialisms in producing a set of 3 tea tins to be sold in the likes of John Lewis, Selfridges and M&S as a luxury gift pack.

Born out of a breadth of research, the brand/products are inspired by both the history of tea and current consumer trends. Notably, the rarity of tea in 1662 when introduced to Britain by Princess Catherine Braganza of Portugal (later Queen consort of Britain alongside King Charles II), Thomas Sullivan’s invention of the tea bag in 1908 and subsequent ‘Decade of the Teabag’ during the 1920s, and the shift in consumer popularity towards rare blends and infusions over the acclaimed ‘builder’s brew.’

All design decisions and product considerations have been made in support of the enhancement of a ‘rare’ resolution, homing in on luxury consumers’ penchant for discovery and premium quality.Using the anti-traditional visual language of the Art-Deco period, the packaging takes a unique, geometric form with clean lines and an opulent aesthetic. Based on an irregular octagon, the design is reminiscent of Art-Deco architecture as a result of stepped-edges found on the shorter 4 sides of the tin. While the intricacy of these stepped-edges make for a rare packaging format, the flat top, bottom, and longer 4 sides of the irregular octagon ensure the tins are still suitable for stacking, packing for distribution and storage — which is of great importance to consumers as discovered during primary research. We also propose that the sides of each tin are magnetic, allowing the packs to be kept together as set. 

All 3 tins within the set use a consistent matt black and metallic gold colour scheme, typical of the lavish Art-Deco movement and its use of expensive materials. While consistent in colour, each tea blend is differentiated by its own geometric, line-formed pattern, blind embossed on the tins’ four longer sides. This consistency of visual language ensures the marriageability of the product(s) as a set of three luxury tins (as requested by the brief).

The ‘Raritea’ brand and packaging resolutions exhibit creative use of tin, marriageability as a set of three luxury tins, and use of decorative and graphic elements to inspire re-usability as a secondary pack, shelf impact, and consumer appeal as luxury gift packaging — all of which are brief requirements. This has led to the short-listing of the entry in the Student Starpack Awards.