Product design 101

I'm a designer, not a business person...or that's what I tell myself anyways. I'm going to document the ways in which I create logos, packaging design or start in the physical product creation process which I now realize can be used for digital or physical product thinking.

My first line of all natural cleaners, hand sanitizers, soy candles, roll on parfums, yoga mat cleaner and air fresheners. Made with all natural essential oils, distilled water, white vinegar etc.

The amber bottles were bought in bulk from Amazon and the labels were printed at home, and designed by me! You can check out the youtube video to make DIY disinfecting spray.

I have serious love for matcha. Ten years ago I couldn't get enough of it, but since then more and more people have adopted it as a healthy alternative to coffee, a baking ingredient and a healthy antioxidant. I first experimented with making matcha milk in milk bottles and matcha almond cookies with dark chocolate that I was going to sell at yoga studios around where I live. The production and the preservation of these products proved to be more complicated than I was ready for.

I later evolved my idea when I started using collagen pills in my daily vitamin regime. I also realized shipping and handling are a huge part of an online business as well as costly. i used some of the same concepts with the label but was able to buy matcha + collagen in bulk and find the least costly and lightest packaging that still looked nice and reminded me of artisan coffee packaging. I love puns as well as calligraphy fonts, which I think suits my target customer very well too.

These are some of the design explorations that I came up when thinking about all the practicalities of business as well as doing a competitive analysis in the tea aisle of my local Whole Foods and browsing Amazon for similar products. Here are some of the existing products that I would be competing with:

Do people really need a big plastic canister like they would protein powder? Are only health nuts buying this powder? I wanted to go for more of an artisan, small batch, discerning type of customer.

This one looks pretty clinical like maybe it's selling a quick serve face mask type product inside. Pretty simple with health information on the front and has an 8 oz serving. Nothing too elegant or quirky about it. After seeing other products, I'm not sold that mine will stand out on the shelves so I might evolve it a bit more.

Wish me matcha luck!

#iterativedesign #productdesign