Katsuke’s Secret

Designers: Mar Sánchez-Morate Palop & Carmen González Montarelo
Location: Spain
Project Type: Student Project
School: ELISAVA
Tutor: Asa Cook
Packaging Contents: Premium Matcha Tea Powder
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Aluminium & wooden lid

The brief of the project was to create a product for Fortnum & Mason’s shop in London. We chose tea because we found it very interesting how important this beverage is for British culture.

Have you ever wonder what’s the story behind a design?

The inspiration for this Matcha tea powder’s packaging was an object called inro, used during the end of XVII’s century and the beginning of XVIII’s century in Japan. It is a small wooden box used to keep little objects such identity stamps, medicine, tobacco and money because Japanese traditional costumes, Kimonos, didn’t have pockets. Its amazing design, composed of several stacked wooden pieces, was the inspiration for our structural design. Keeping the product in smaller compartments makes the tea’s properties to last longer. The materials that we used for our structure were aluminium and wood.

Referring to graphic design, we wanted to merge two cultures in which tea is an essential part of their daily life. We got inspired by the relationship between two families, the Morris’, from England, and an old man from Okinawa, Dai Katsuke, who revealed them his secret for a longer and healthier life. Because of that, we wanted to combine both cultures. On the one hand the Japanese, in which traditional geometric patterns are very common and, on the other hand, the British, in which some of the highlights are organic elements and vibrant colors.

For this project, we wanted to make our design bold and different from other tea packs. A ‘ceremonial’ grade gift that will challenge your palate while sharing good time and memories with your beloved ones.

What’s Unique?
The structural unique shape elevates the product to a premium category and added to the combination of different colours and materials it gives the design this bold touch that makes it different from any other tea’s pack. Also, we extended the range of products making different tea flavors that, in a future, could combine differently between them to make your own unique combination of different flavors.