Six tea tins, one botanical pattern system

The problem

Kettle & Crane sold excellent loose-leaf tea in tins that looked like a pharmacy shelf: white labels, black type, a tiny crane logo. Independent grocers kept placing them on the bottom shelf because nothing about the packaging asked to be seen, and the founders were tired of explaining in person why their tea was worth twelve dollars.

The tins were printed directly on steel by a supplier with a minimum run of 3,000 per design, so the budget allowed two spot colors plus one metallic, no full process color. Each of the six blends needed its own identity, but the whole range had to read as a family from three meters away. The new tins had to be on shelves before the autumn trade fair.

Process

1. 01

   Botanical studies first

   I asked for a sample of each blend and drew the actual ingredients: bergamot peel, roasted rice, chamomile heads, ginger root, smoked pine needles, dried rose. Twelve pages of gouache studies from life gave me shapes that belonged to each tea, rather than generic leaves, and the founders chose the forms that matched how they describe the blends to customers.

2. 02

   Two-color scripts per blend

   Each blend got a pair of spot colors, picked from a shared set of eight so tins could sit side by side without clashing. I tested every pair as small color scripts on kraft paper, then as printed drawdowns from the tin supplier, because inks on steel shift warmer than any screen preview. Copper metallic became the common thread across the range.

3. 03

   Gouache scans, separated by hand

   Finals were painted in gouache at twice print size, scanned at 1200 dpi and separated into spot channels by hand in Photoshop, keeping the dry-brush texture on the edges. I built each wrap as a continuous repeat so the pattern meets itself at the seam, and supplied dielines with bleed, overprint notes and a proof for each tin.

Selected images

Outcome