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After completing my Type and Grids project of creating a magazine, it was now time to step into another area of graphic design; packaging.

I had not had much experience of designing packaging since GCSE level Graphic Design, however this was still one of the projects which I was most looking forward too.

We were each asked to pick an ordinary everyday item from the supplied list. Items included tissues, plasters, sticky tape, dog treats, post-it notes and coffee. One of items on the list was tea bags and this was the item that I chose.

I wanted to make my tea bags specifically flavoured, rather than just being a standard English Breakfast. I therefore chose to go down the path of Sleepy Tea, for those not aware, this is tea you drink in the evening to help you sleep.

We were asked purchase the item and repackage it in a creative way- this would therefore mean that the item could sell for more profit.

Given the fact that my item was sleepy tea, I wanted to focus on things that you would associate with sleeping and bed time. I mind-mapped lots of different ideas, including pillows, alarm clocks, bedding, tired eyes, nightcaps and beds.

Choosing a bed to package the tea bags in seemed an obvious choice to me- it was a good shape to get a lot of tea bags in and it would be sturdy enough to sit on a shelf in a shop.

I therefore mocked up a few different versions of beds out of paper and presented them back to my course leaders. I had chosen more of a divan style bed because I believed this would be the best way to safely store the tea bags. I looked at how drawers could come out the side or the end of the box could be opened.

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Finally, we came to the decision that I could perforate the top of the box so that the user could ‘peel’ back the ‘covers’ on the bed and open the box.

I then experimented on how the bed would visually look- I wanted to keep the strong link between tea and sleep so therefore looked into patterns that had tea pots on whilst simultaneously finding ones that could look like bedding. Cath Kidston was an inspiration here and I found myself on the website looking through their material samples.

I chose colours of bedding and adapted the pattern which I had found to fit around the bed shape that I wanted. This involved me creating more of the pattern as the one I had found only had a small square section visible to view. I wanted to pick the colours to reflect the flavour of the tea but also for them to not be too bright- rather calming as the audience would drink the tea before bed.