1. Summarize the problem you set out to solve. What was the challenge posed to you? Did it get you excited and why?

Around Christmas time there is always controversy about throwing away the Christmas three after the holiday has passed, so I was eager to find a alternative which would keep the main essence of Christmas – getting together with your loved ones. Food and drink consumption is one of the main things that brings people together to a table, and because tea is the most used beverage in the winter time, the concept build around the tea bag came very naturally to life. Since it was a self-initiated project it all started with the idea of an alternative for the Christmas tea and excitingly ended in packaging design.

2. What point of view did you bring to the challenge? Was there anything additional that you wanted to achieve with this project or bring to this project that was not part of the original brief?

When thinking about Christmas, I came to the conclusion that the most important thing is not a thing. It is the coming together and sharing. From that point of view it was easier to go further into the problem.

3. When designing this project, whose interests did you consider? (Discuss various stakeholders, audiences, retailing, manufacturing, assembly, distribution, etc., for example.)

After the main interest – the consumer – the second was the tea manufacturers, because they have a demand for bringing extra value to their products.

4. Describe the rigor that informed your design. (Research, ethnography, subject matter experts, materials exploration, technology, iteration, testing, etc., as applicable.) If this was a strictly research or strategy project, please provide more detail here.

The research part of the design was behavioral analysis by visiting people at their homes watching their behavioral as hosts, further interviewing people about the often used term “lets go grab a drink”. After the research part the prototype testing was home made and consisted of trying different types of paper after consulting with an expert in paper production, than dipping it into hot water and trying out tea bag shapes and different materials.

5. What is the social value of your design? (Gladdening, educational, economic, paradigm-shifting, sustainable, labor-mindful, environmental, cultural, etc.) How does it earn its keep in the world?

The design is sustainable because it is made out of natural materials and it can be attached to an existing product – the tea bag. Which also makes it economical because the tea industry is big. The environmental aspect would be the fact that the product could replace the common Christmas tree in small households, like student housing. It could also be a cultural barrier breaker because while the three is a symbol for Christmas in one culture, tea drinking is common in more than one culture.

6. If you could have done one thing differently with the project, what would you have changed?

I would have think more about stalking the boxes in the shelves in the stores. The sticking out trees do not enable the boxes to be stalked one to another, so on this part I would have made slight adjustments to solve it.