CULTURAL PRODUCT DESIGN · 2022
White Tea
An eight-week collaboration connecting tea, visual storytelling, and the systems that help a team create together.
A gift made by a team of six
White Tea, 初心白茶, began as an eight-week project at Dedao Institute of Advanced Studies. Six professionals from different fields worked around full-time jobs to create a cultural gift box. The result, 初心臻礼, combined tea, illustration, narrative, packaging, and physical delivery. The original project records a run of 100 units.
My role in a shared production
I led the project and visual design, including product IP and narrative direction, packaging, illustration collaboration, and presentation. Teammates contributed tea sourcing and curation, copywriting, tea-master partnerships, quality control, production logistics, and sponsor coordination. The outcome depended on those complementary contributions.
Making participation visible
The collaboration system addressed fragmented time and uneven workloads. Shared boards made research, creative options, progress, and ownership visible. Reverse scheduling and modular tasks helped each person contribute within their available time.
Shared boards
Research, creative development, progress, and contribution tracking lived in a common visual system.
Contribution visibility
A contribution index recorded small actions and made participation visible without relying on monetary incentives.
Creative clustering
The team analyzed more than 30 competing products and grouped references into a shared aesthetic language.
Mountains, mist, and a story to unfold
The visual direction draws from Fuding’s tea mountains. Layers of ink-like landscape connect calmness and renewal to the physical act of opening the box. Five original characters support a Tea Duel narrative, while a pop-up structure gives the illustrated world depth.
A complete physical experience
The set contains two art postcards, a mini illustrated storybook, a fold-out tea-knowledge map, and four individually sealed tea canisters. Silver Needle, White Peony, Shou Mei, and Gong Mei form the tea selection.
A finished product and a shared achievement
The original case records First Prize among the institute’s graduation projects. Beyond the award and production run, the project demonstrated how visual organization could help people from different professions create a coherent product together.