AH Organic Tea

Private Brand: Albert Heijn
Retailer: Albert Heijn
Country: The Netherlands
Category: G2: Organic and Natural Food
Agency: Millford Brand ID

Credits:

Tahir Idouri, Creative Director/Partner, Millford Brand ID
Sascha Goutier, Account Director, Millford Brand ID
Jorien Doorn, Visualiser/Illustrator, Millford Brand ID 

Summary:

Albert Heijn asked us to create an identity for this range of four private label organic teas. The category of tea is an interesting one since it is an ever-changing mix of brands, challenger brands, and private label. In the case of tea, people tend to look for quality as well as a promising experience. Therefore we couldn’t let this range be just an organic variety of the regular, non-organic counterparts within the private label tea assortment. So we sought something more… A reason to buy and believe in the product. A way to not just buy tea, but an experience that touches you on a deeper level. A way to let it stand out among the many varieties and brands that are already on the shelves.

We thought about the functionality one could ascribe to these teas. The moment of usage. The specific colors of the tea liquid and we thought of the origin of the ingredients. Taking in all this input the teas started to speak to us as if they were telling us a story. Each of them seemed to become a specific character, as heroes in a fairy tale book. And each of them would be given a name. Ordinary ‘Green Tea’ became an imaginative ‘Green Dragon’ instead. And so the Green Dragon, Blue Nightingale, Red Antilope, and Golden Tiger were born out of facts and imagination.

The fairy tale book concept was then taken a step further by creating a design that represented this concept. Like the cover of an old storybook, the facing of the boxes was enhanced by intricate illustration and lettering. Our illustrator created these fairy tale worlds that allowed your eyes to travel all over each of the boxes, letting you discover different angles of the stories. The inside has a marbled paper pattern and two ‘pages’ where you can read the fairy tale that was written for each character. The stories draw you into the world of the character and gives you an intension to hold on to every time you drink this tea, or in daily life in general. The stories deal with relatable themes like slowing down, sharing, trust, open-mindedness, respect, yearning, love, and so on.