I was lucky enough to have taught Rowan Laubsch when he was in secondary school. He has an awesome eye for design and attention to detail. His blurb on the Amalgamate website reads:
“Rowan Laubsch enjoys working in areas of design including packaging, typography and branding. Taking a clean, minimalist approach, he explores possibilities to reach unique concepts, which add intrigue to the design outcome. A discovered passion for the tactility of paper led to his desire to pursue a career specialised in print design.”
“Tea Lab” was his response to a brief to develop the branding and packaging of a luxury item. This design won him the student Australian Graphic Design Association (AGDA) award for three-dimensional design.
It draws connections between brewing tea and the field of chemistry. The catalogue of flavours mimics the periodic table linking the names of tea styles with letters similar to those in the periodic table, with each variety corresponding to a different colour. The bags are packaged in a square box with the information about the tea written in a white section on the side. The exterior makes use of dynamic angles similar to those contained in the logo to add interest to the package. The coloured section has been embossed to create a tactile component to the design.
Throughout the packaging the angles of the colour blocks are set at that of a hexagon, these hexagonal elements mimic the shapes found in carbon chains and the interlocking nature of covalent bonds.
Also, the grid that fills the entire package and catalogue is also an isometric grid of repeated hexagons. The identity logo itself was also drawn from this hexagonal grid.
The logo utilises positive and negative space to accentuate the interlocking box shapes that form the “T and L” this makes it both visually appealing as well as communicating the brand name. The tea boxes are reflected in the design as well as the chemistry theme.
The overall design is particularly successful in communicating to the tea enthusiast the nature of the product and the complexity that exists within. For the novice it is an easy to understand; organised format to communicate simply the product range.
