POV: Week 3.5

This blog post, I think I'll share about the project that we did for the class. These past two weeks along with all the field trips, we've been working on a project alongside NCKU students. My group consisted of two other UW students and two NCKU students. The beginning of our work time was a challenge. Half of the people in our group came down with cold-like symptons which made working difficult. We started with brainstorming. It was a rushed process and with infinite options, we wrote down anything that sounded intersting. 

We grouped our like ideas and started to work towards commonality. Soon it was our early concept presentation. We pitched four ideas, two of which we were passionate about, two of which we thought had potential for expansion. From our pitches, our ideas were based around a peach and it was decided that that would be the direction we were going to go. We learned pretty quickly that we are food motivated. Instead of working in the classroom space, we took breaks in other places like our hotel rooms, resturants, and coffee shops to work.  One place that we went back to was Bottoms Up. It was a coffee shop that specalizes in pour over coffee. Their pour over coffee kept us going and their upstair space provided comfortable seating (no outlets however) and mostly reliable wifi while we worked. 

We pitched ideas, drew sketches, and worked on the presentation. The tables were wide enough for us to work effectively with our notebooks, computers, coffee, and food. We really felt that our space effected our creative thinking. At Bottoms Up is mostly where we discussed our peach idea and expanded it into our final design. It might also have been because of our hunger and being in a new space. 

We created a very solid idea, it just became how to execute it. This part was difficult due to an assortment of reasons. One of the main was time. We kept building on the brand identity portion of the idea. From the name to what the business would look like, we had it all. However, time really made us reconsider and scale back our project. We did mention some of our fun ideas to further the brand in the presentation, just not the mockups. Our final idea became Fu tea, a tea brand rebranding the tea experience. When it came to Fu tea, we wanted to highlight the Taiwanese drinking culture, seasons, and fruits. We hoped to bridge the gap in tea use and providing a creative solution to try somehting new. 

Our project highighted the peach fruit and turning it into 6 tea bags with a loose leaf pit. Our final project was a gift set that includes 4 fruits, each representing a Taiwanese blessing and US season, divided into 6 tea bags and a loose leaf pit. In the box also contained 4 coasters, matching the fruit that highlights the Taiwanese blessing and US season. 

This project was one that I grew great passion for as it was creative and with endless opportunities. I really enjoyed bonding over food and designing this brand with my team.