Type Specimens
Tea’s A Charm
Theme for the Project:
What if our daily routines were stemming from a deeper desire for connection to our memories and our dreams. This publication explores the concept of a simple ritual such as drinking tea thrice a day through the design language of a type specimen that is deeply personal to me yet anchored in the context of a particular period in History and English Literature.
Play this song and immerse yourself in the design journey of this project
Tea’s A Charm Type Specimen
About the Document:
The specimen was 5.75 x 4.5 inches, the same size as Beatrix Potter's original "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" picture books, which were my first memory reference to tea, when Peter’s mother gives him a chamomile tea.
The color palette was inspired by Potter's watercolor illustrations, and all photographs were taken with a Google Pixel 7 phone. A sepia filter was used to evoke the Georgian Era of Britain. The same effect is applied to the watercolour illustrations, symbolizing the nostalgic memories of childhood.
The illustrations are original miniature drawings by my older sister, Shaza Khan. We share an Instagram handle called Beatrix Potter Tribute (shown below) created during the pandemic to spread joy and honor Potter’s resilient spirit. Beatrix Potter's environmental conservation efforts and the story behind Peter Rabbit inspired our work. Original drawings by Potter are also included in the document, with complete illustrations of Peter Rabbit and his friends.
The type specimen was built through layers of documentation capturing my daily tea drinking ritual. The watercolour illustrations were lent by my sister who is a Beatrix Potter enthusiast, and together we started the beatrix potter tribute page on instagram during Covid in 2020.
Color palette created for the specimen after analysing Beatrix Potter’s watercolours from the original picture book series.
Beatrix Potter’s original illustration sketches in pen and ink inspired the monotone treatment for all the images and illustrations in the type specimen.
From Type Specimen to Publication: Boston Arts Book Fair 2023
Packaging for the Publication:
The type specimen's narratives symbolize tea drinking as a ritual linked to memory and dreams. The publication is housed in a package resembling a teabag, reflecting the passage of time. I stained Mulberry Paper with leftover tea and used actual tea bag strings for the labels, designed to appear as used and extracted, symbolizing the essence of time.
T-Bag tags created for the packaging of the type specimen for the book fair
BABF Instagam Promotion
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BABF Instagam Promotion 〰️
Tarzana
For this type specimen I used an Emigre Font called Tarzana by Zuzana Licko. Emigre, Inc. is a digital type foundry based in Berkeley, California.
According to the type designer, Tarzana was developed purely along formal lines. Keeping this idea of formal lines and the subject matter in mind, I designed the type specimen along ancient roman symbolism, philosophy and literature.
The content for the specimen was derived from one of my professors curated booklets and I chose passages, phrases and words that spoke to me and the theme in general.
After designing the specimen, I also hand trimmed and bound it in physical form, using a guillotine and perfect binding machine at my university.