Stash Tea

Stash Tea, a household name for over 30 years came to Jolby to redefine their brand in a way that would reposition them with their avid customer base and attract new tea drinkers alike. Over a year’s worth of research, designing, testing, and launching led us here!

ROLES

Design
Strategy
Branding
Illustration
Packaging

Building on Brand Equity

Not every rebrand needs to start from scratch. We had 30+ years of history to use as a starting point. Through extensive market research, we learned what people liked and disliked about the current box and logo as well as the things that helped them identify the pack on the shelf: that the box had a black bar up top, bold colors, and a “star” in the logo. Starting there, we modernized the wordmark with a custom serif and a whimsical crossbar in the “A”.

We separated the wordmark and the mark itself for better legibility and softened the black bar. The mark, called “the Compass”, hints at their nautical past while being adorned with tea leaves.

Brand Assets

Born from the redesign, the pack, tea envelopes, and other materials called for icons, patterns and more. All of which helped to define Stash’s new brand look.

Color System

Stash’s previous flavors were defined by a single color that limited how new teas would be added to their ever-growing catalog. Our solution was to introduce a two-color system to broaden the brand’s color palette and to define flavors via color combinations. Each color pair acts as a visual for the taste of the tea and follows the flavor from its packaging to its envelope to its tea tag.

PACK DESIGN

The packs themselves needed to have their own individual flavor identities while also feeling like a family. We did this through a consistent design foundation, stunning photography, and bright colors.

The Stack

The new approach for brand photography was defined to use fresh ingredients playfully stacked on top of each other called “The Stack”. The Stack was designed as a unique way to represent flavor and Stash’s light-hearted personality in one photo asset. The Stack defies gravity and proportions in a playful way and uses props to help show the flavor of the tea inside. We were also able to capture some of The Stack in-camera without the use of additional compositing.

Responsive Type

Each box has a container on it for the type of tea, the name, and some flavor text. Our challenge was fitting in tea names from one word to as many as eight as well as short English words and long French names. The system we designed flexes with each box and each orientation.