Interview about Every Perfect Day Tea Package Design, winner of the A' Packaging Design Award 2025
This redesign of Bigelow Tea's packaging enhances both aesthetics and functionality. Bold typography highlights each tea's benefits, while dynamic gradients differentiate flavors within a cohesive system. Each tea comes in a triangular box, which interlocks into a striking hexagonal form, strengthening shelf presence and user engagement. This modular, interactive design elevates the tea experience, blending visual appeal with practical innovation.
View detailed images, specifications, and award details on A' Design Award & Competition website.
View Design DetailsThe hexagonal interlocking system grew out of my initial intention to design the tea as a series rather than isolated products. Because Every Perfect Day includes multiple flavors, I wanted each tea package to function independently while also feeling like part of a larger, cohesive system.At the beginning, I imagined the collection as six individual units that could come together to form a whole—visually and structurally reflecting the idea of balance and daily rituals. This led me to explore simple geometric forms that could stand alone but also interlock seamlessly. Through sketching and physical mockups, I realized that triangular forms offered the most flexibility.As I continued experimenting, I discovered that six triangular packages naturally assemble into a hexagon. This moment became a breakthrough: the hexagon symbolized harmony, completeness, and repetition—concepts that aligned perfectly with the brand’s message of everyday wellness. Structurally, it also allowed the packaging to transform from a single-serving object into a shared, display-worthy centerpiece.This system reimagines tea packaging as something modular and interactive. Customers can purchase one flavor or collect multiple, and the packaging itself encourages engagement—stacking, arranging, and combining—rather than being immediately discarded. The form also guided the graphic design: typography and gradients were oriented to reinforce both the individuality of each flavor and the unity of the full set.Overall, the hexagonal structure emerged from a balance between conceptual intention and hands-on exploration. It reflects my approach to design: starting with a clear idea about user experience and meaning, then allowing form, structure, and typography to evolve together through iteration and discover
Because Every Perfect Day is a functional tea collection, my primary goal was to make its benefits immediately legible. I wanted users to understand what this tea does for them at first glance, even before reading the flavor details or ingredients. That intention directly informed my typographic hierarchy.The tea’s functional benefit—such as healthy digestion, antioxidants, relaxation, or sleep—became the first-level typographic hierarchy. I treated these phrases with bold scale, weight, and high contrast so they act as the entry point to the package. The flavor name supports that message, while secondary information—ingredients, weight, and brand details—lives in a quieter, side-positioned hierarchy that invites closer reading.The dynamic gradients work in parallel with the typography. They help differentiate flavors while also reinforcing emotional cues associated with each benefit—calm, energy, balance—without relying on imagery. This allowed the packaging to remain minimal, modern, and system-driven, while still feeling expressive and approachable.Overall, the typographic emphasis reflects my belief that typography is not just a visual element but a communication tool. By foregrounding function through type, the design supports quick decision-making, aligns with wellness-oriented consumer behavior, and reinforces the idea that each tea is designed to support a specific daily need.
Because this was a rebranding project, my research focused on how younger consumers interact with wellness brands today—especially in competitive retail environments. I found that this audience tends to prefer contemporary, minimal, and system-driven packaging that communicates value quickly rather than relying on illustrative or photographic imagery.Based on those insights, I intentionally removed all previous image-based visuals from the packaging. Instead, I used color and typography as the primary tools to express flavor and function. This decision made the system more modular and flexible, while also giving the packaging a cleaner, more modern shelf presence that stands out through clarity rather than visual noise.The modular structure and interactive hexagonal system further support this behavior. On the shelf, a single unit is bold and readable; when multiple units are displayed together, they create a visually striking, collectable form that encourages exploration and engagement. This aligns with market trends where consumers enjoy products that feel designed, intentional, and shareable, especially for lifestyle and wellness brands.Ultimately, the research led me to prioritize clarity, modularity, and interaction. By simplifying the visual language and focusing on benefits through typography and color, the design invites users to engage both cognitively—understanding the product quickly—and physically—through collecting, arranging, and displaying the packaging.
The precision of the triangular boxes came from treating the packaging as a modular system governed by a strict grid. From the earliest sketches, I approached both structure and typography as parts of the same system, ensuring that each unit could function independently while aligning perfectly when combined.During prototyping, I tested multiple paper mockups and scale variations to refine the triangle’s angles and edges, making sure the units could interlock cleanly without visual or structural gaps. At the same time, I developed a consistent grid system that controlled typographic placement across all faces of the package. This allowed the messaging to remain legible and aligned, whether the box was viewed alone or as part of the hexagonal assembly.Within this controlled framework, color became the key variable. Each flavor is differentiated through a distinct gradient, while the structure and typographic hierarchy remain constant. This balance between fixed rules and flexible elements helped the system stay both precise and expressive.Ultimately, the prototyping process was about iteration and restraint—using modular logic and grid discipline to achieve clarity, consistency, and a seamless interlocking mechanism that feels intentional rather than decorative.
My goal was to create a sensory-driven design system that communicates flavor without relying on literal imagery. Instead of illustrating ingredients directly, I used color as a primary signifier to represent each flavor, allowing users to recognize and differentiate teas intuitively.To reinforce that sensory experience, I introduced gradients as an abstract metaphor for the moment when a tea bag disperses in hot water. The soft transitions suggest aroma, diffusion, and warmth—capturing the feeling of the tea rather than a literal depiction of it. This approach keeps the visual language expressive while remaining minimal and contemporary.Brand cohesion is maintained through a consistent structural system: the same triangular form, grid-based typography, and hierarchy are applied across all flavors. Within that framework, color and gradient behavior act as controlled variables. This balance allows each flavor to feel distinct, while the collection as a whole reads clearly as one unified brand.Overall, the abstraction was intentional. By focusing on sensation rather than illustration, the design creates an emotional and experiential connection, while preserving clarity, consistency, and scalability across the entire product line.
The most challenging technical obstacles were rooted in translating a conceptual system into a physically functional object. Designing the dieline was a critical step—I had to carefully calculate angles, folds, and tolerances so the triangular units could lock together precisely to form a clean hexagon without gaps or structural weakness.Another major challenge was measurement and scale. I needed to accurately measure the tea bag itself, determine the optimal internal clearance, and then build outward to define the final package dimensions. Any small miscalculation affected not only usability but also how seamlessly the modules connected as a set. This required multiple rounds of prototyping and adjustment.Because the project functions as a series, I also had to solve a visual challenge: ensuring that each individual package feels balanced and comfortable on its own, while still contributing harmoniously to the larger hexagonal composition. Typography, grid alignment, and color placement all had to work at both scales—single unit and collective form—without feeling crowded or visually abrupt.Overall, the challenge was balancing engineering precision with visual coherence. Solving these problems strengthened my understanding of how structural design, measurement, and graphic systems must work together to create packaging that is both innovative and intuitive.
In the contemporary tea market, consumers expect packaging to communicate clearly, quickly, and with personality. Every Perfect Day responds to this shift by stripping the design down to what matters most—function, flavor, and feeling—while making the experience visually engaging.From a functional standpoint, the packaging uses a simplified visual hierarchy so key information can be understood at a glance. Bold typography and color-coded systems allow users to quickly identify benefits and flavors without needing to search through dense text. This reflects how modern consumers make decisions in fast-paced retail environments.Aesthetically, the design embraces minimalism with interest. By replacing imagery with abstract color and gradient systems, the packaging feels contemporary and refined, but not cold. The modular, interlocking structure adds an element of play and collectability, transforming the package from a disposable object into something users want to interact with and keep.Overall, the design balances clarity and curiosity—meeting the demand for efficiency while still offering a thoughtful, engaging visual experience that resonates with today’s younger, design-aware audience.
During user testing, one unexpected insight was that color often drove purchasing decisions more strongly than flavor descriptions. Many users said they were initially drawn to a tea based on the color they personally liked, even before reading the functional benefits.Another key finding was that some customers were motivated to buy multiple flavors—or even the full set—because the packaging worked as a cohesive collection. The interlocking system made the product feel collectible rather than purely consumable.These insights reinforced my decision to prioritize color as a primary variable and to design the packaging as a modular series. As a result, the final design supports both individual impulse purchases and set-based buying behavior, strengthening shelf appeal and user engagement.
Every Perfect Day Tea’s packaging balances sustainability and innovation by using a single-material, paper-based structure that relies on smart folding and geometry rather than extra components. The pentagonal form achieves strength through die-cut precision and interlocking planes, reducing material use and improving recyclability.Minimal ink coverage, clean typography, and the absence of plastic inserts or specialty finishes further lower environmental impact. At the same time, the sculptural form encourages reuse, extending the package’s life beyond single use. Overall, the design shows how structural intelligence—not added material—can drive both sustainability and visual impact.
Receiving the Iron A’ Design Award reinforced my belief that innovation in packaging doesn’t have to come from complexity, but from clarity, restraint, and purpose. This recognition validates an approach that prioritizes structural intelligence, sustainability, and emotional resonance over excess.Moving forward, it encourages me to continue designing packaging as a system—where form, material, function, and message work together to reduce waste while enhancing user experience. It also motivates me to push further in exploring how simple geometries and minimal materials can create meaningful, memorable interactions, especially in categories shaped by wellness, consumption, and everyday rituals.
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