The Teapoy Brand Identity Design - A Case Study
When we were commissioned by this client, he was most clear in his mind about what Teapoy was not. It was not going to be a “chai” place. It was not going to be a “cutting chai ki dukaan”. It was not going to be somewhere noisy with people shouting over each other and tables cramped together with barely any space to breathe, let alone enjoy a cup of Earl Grey.
“Everything else,” he said, “I leave entirely up to you.”
Best. Client. Ever.
“Tea is a work of art and needs a master’s hand to bring out its noblest qualities.” - Kakuro Okakura, Book of Tea
Ever since that first meeting with Aditya, Teapoy has been a true labour of love, in more ways than one. The perfect space itself was notoriously elusive for months. Nothing seemed to work out, and the places that did, just didn’t have that Teapoy vibe we were going for.
As for the branding, we spent half a year researching tea in such great depth that we might just have become tea connoisseurs in our own right. The walls of the studio were layered in post-it notes, reference photos, scribbles and sketches.
COMPETITION
In terms of competition in Pune, there was virtually none. Most places that claimed to be ‘tea bars’ were essentially just glorified ‘tapris’. So we had our work cut out for us, at least within the city limits.
In other, bigger cities in the country, there were again only a handful of tea bars that really stood out. Flury’s in Kolkata, Infinitea in Bangalore, and The Tea Room Co. in Gurgaon.
All said and done, the country seemed primed and ready for a tea shaped revolution. As a nation, we’ve been accustomed to drinking a glass of black tea with milk every morning, but we have little to no knowledge of the other tea options out there. And there are literally thousands.
The fact that there was such little education on tea became our first hurdle. To convince a black tea and milk drinking population to try a cup of steaming green tea, and then have them coming back for more, every day — that was the real challenge.
POSITIONING
We decided the positioning for Teapoy would be simple and straightforward.
Teapoy is classy and understated (unlike the pretentious tea rooms in other parts of the country), and highlights authenticity while retaining its elegant humility. It has strong roots in the tea estates of Darjeeling, but brings tea from all around the world and from different tea cultures, and hence, while it may reflect Darjeeling in so many ways, it does not conform to any specific nationality or culture of tea.
Keeping in mind the variety of people and moods that tea caters to, the variety of tea traditions, the space would be extremely eclectic, but also warm, friendly, organic and green.
One of the main goals of the brand would be to educate people about the centuries old art of making and drinking tea, and to create a culture of tea drinking. Real tea drinking, not that black waste material they’re used to drinking every morning.
Humility was to be at the core of the brand – from the humble little teapoy itself to the puns in the illustrations. It would educate, without being preachy. We wanted to get rid of the British era snobbery that has now become associated with great tea culture.
TARGET CONSUMERS
We divided our potential target customers into three groups:
1. People who simply enjoy the calm and peaceful vibe Teapoy would offer
2. People willing to experiment and try something new, especially something other than coffee
3. Tea lovers and connoisseurs
We needed a brand that was attractive to all three of these — very different — types of people.
IDENTITY DESIGN EXPLORATION
It was a no-brainer that we’d use an actual teapoy as our central logo unit. It was a whimsical little thing, reminiscent of another era, when tea was such an integral part of every home that there was a piece of furniture dedicated to that pot and cups of that nectar.
At the core of the design aesthetic was the hand-drawn beauty of old-school children’s books. It was immediately intelligent and discerning, eclectic and engaging, and classy and understated.
In the interest of being as authentic with the experience of the brand and identity design as Teapoy was with the experience of tea, we knew we would have to create every illustration using actual old-school drawing techniques. So, with literally hundreds of references to keep us company, we toiled away with pencil and paper, drawing, re-drawing, erasing, discarding, scribbling on every available space we had, just so we could get it absolutely, perfectly right.
A fraction of the full set of references we eventually used to perfect the illustration style
FINAL IDENTITY DESIGN
After weeks (or was it months?) of exploration, our little teapoy illustration was born. It was everything we’d imagined, and then some. Every dot, every line, a carefully considered decision. It looked straight out of an illustrated children’s novel from the 1920s, and we loved it.
Once this little guy was complete, the ball began to roll a whole lot quicker. We went straight on to the logotype exploration, and finally zeroed in on a typographic companion to our teapoy illustration.
The logo was finally done! But there was a lot more to be done. So we fawned over this labour of love for a few days more, before getting our noses right back into the design of the print collateral.
COLLATERAL DESIGN
Restaurants and tea bars have a ton of printed collateral to create. From office stationery to menus and coasters and even doilies, everything needed to be a part of the broader identity that we’d created so far. This meant even more of the same hand-drawn illustration style we’d become so adept at.
We got down to work, and started ticking off each collateral, one by one.
Identity (see what we did there, with the contact info?)
Stationery
Coasters
Doilies
Napkins
THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
Even though we ended up spending the better part of a year on designing and building the Teapoy brand, there is still much to be done.
We finally found the perfect spot to build our beloved tea bar, and work on the space is already underway. By the middle of October, Teapoy would officially be open for business. And by then, we’d need to have signage, menus, interior design, uniforms, and a whole lot of other exciting extensions of the brand, not to mention a website where you could learn even more about your new favourite drink at your new favourite tea bar.
We can’t wait to show you more of this gorgeous brand design as it develops. And we hope to see you at Teapoy.
Especially now that you know just how much love went into creating it.