When Life Gives You Lemon Zinger

I've written before about the packaging of Celestial Seasonings tea, asking their new packaging to help me out with differentiating their decaffeinated green tea from their decaffeinated mint green tea. Nothing like a mouthful of mint when you're not expecting it!

Being an accommodating company with relatively deep pockets, they changed the packaging not too long after I wrote. I take full credit.

Recently, I finished a box of their Lemon Zinger tea that had been in my cupboard for years, and hence had the old packaging. Because it makes such great iced tea -- my new drink of choice at home -- I've bought another box, which is part of the new packaging program.


Old packaging


New packaging

It's quite a challenge to redesign an iconic package like the Celestial Seasonings product line. I like the new logo, with its Indian decorative references, and the way they've incorporated the illustration into the box face with a flowing rather than rectilinear shape.



It's interesting to note that this version of the box is not what was first done by the well-known branding firm hired to redo the system. The top of the box, with the curving edge and very clear treatment of the specific product name, Lemon Zinger, is not what was first printed and sold, as shown in this photo of the packaging line from the branding firm's website:

It's the same logo and artwork, but the top is a straight line, and the Lemon Zinger name is much less prominent. I wonder who did the more recent version?

The new illustration is fun and, honestly, more dynamic than the old one. But I had to include one last visual genuflection to the old illustration, and its illustrator, Kinuko Y. Craft, so prominently credited. It's not too often you see an illustrator credit on a piece of packaging, and I always liked that, almost as much as the odd little quotes and sayings that covered the sides of the old box.