Bartram's Blend
Bartram's Blend
A garden's gift to investors
Turning a donor gift into a daily ritual, an origami tea set rooted in Bartram's Garden's own botanical heritage. Led the design campaign for a local landmark's donor appreciation initiative ahead of its major expansion unveiling. Reframing a one-time donation into an interactive daily ritual that brings the garden into their home.
ROLES
Lead Designer
Co-Creative Director
Product Designer
Product Engineer
services
End-to-End Design
tools
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Rhino 3D
Solid Works
Brief
From Garden to gift
Key Challenges
Bartram’s Garden was about to embark on a National Capital Campaign, and the board was hoping to identify local designers to help produce a unique “Thank You” gift that connects the donors to Philadelphia, the Schuylkill River, and the Garden itself as well as celebrating the vision, mission, and strategic plan of Bartram’s Garden. Cross-disciplinary teams were formed between product design and graphic design to approach the brief collaboratively.
The final product was required to tell the story of the Garden and its surrounding area through the incorporation of paper and textiles, remaining aesthetically beautiful, aligned with the Garden’s branding, and true to an intricate, nature-inspired aesthetic. The gift needed to be reproducible between 250 and 1000 pieces within a budget of $10,000 to $15,000.
How can a gift capture the feeling of Bartram’s Garden — landscape, heritage, mission — in a way that connects donors to Philadelphia, the Schuylkill River, and the Garden itself?
Bartram’s Garden was about to embark on a National Capital Campaign, and the board was hoping to identify local designers to help produce a unique “Thank You” gift that connects the donors to Philadelphia, the Schuylkill River, and the Garden itself as well as celebrating the vision, mission, and strategic plan of Bartram’s Garden. Cross-disciplinary teams were formed between product design and graphic design to approach the brief collaboratively.
The final product was required to tell the story of the Garden and its surrounding area through the incorporation of paper and textiles, remaining aesthetically beautiful, aligned with the Garden’s branding, and true to an intricate, nature-inspired aesthetic. The gift needed to be reproducible between 250 and 1000 pieces within a budget of $10,000 to $15,000.
How can a gift capture the feeling of Bartram’s Garden — landscape, heritage, mission — in a way that connects donors to Philadelphia, the Schuylkill River, and the Garden itself?
Bartram’s Garden was about to embark on a National Capital Campaign, and the board was hoping to identify local designers to help produce a unique “Thank You” gift that connects the donors to Philadelphia, the Schuylkill River, and the Garden itself as well as celebrating the vision, mission, and strategic plan of Bartram’s Garden. Cross-disciplinary teams were formed between product design and graphic design to approach the brief collaboratively.
The final product was required to tell the story of the Garden and its surrounding area through the incorporation of paper and textiles, remaining aesthetically beautiful, aligned with the Garden’s branding, and true to an intricate, nature-inspired aesthetic. The gift needed to be reproducible between 250 and 1000 pieces within a budget of $10,000 to $15,000.
How can a gift capture the feeling of Bartram’s Garden — landscape, heritage, mission — in a way that connects donors to Philadelphia, the Schuylkill River, and the Garden itself?
Map & Improvements
Map & Improvements
Content
Logo
Logo
Content
Logo
Logo
Content
Color Scheme
Color Scheme
Content
Typography
Typography
Content
Background
Written guidelines & current branding
Along with the rhetoric of the Garden’s written guidelines, the product must align with the visual and aesthetic branding of the Garden.
Insights
Emphasis on experiences through routines and rituals
Bartram’s Garden places immense emphasis on experiences, therefore we wanted to design a gift that centers an experience or activity at its core. By designing a gift that centers an experience or activity, it becomes an extension for what Bartram’s stands for.
The goal was an experience embedded in the everyday (routines), carrying meaning beyond its primary function (rituals). What separates a ritual from a routine is value, tedium, and consciousness. Designed rituals don’t add to the to-do list, they transform something already being done into a moment worth having.
Making a cup of tea is one of the few daily tasks practiced by millions everyday that invites the user to slow down and reflect. Tea sits at the intersection of the Garden’s vision and mission – honoring its botanical heritage and its history in natural science and medicine, as well as actively utilizing the ongoing agricultural programs.
Tea transforms a common daily task into a meaningful ritual, and is rooted in the Garden’s heritage, history, and current agricultural programs.
Concept
A gift centered around tea that incorporates elements of the garden and highlights the new developments.
Product Pillars
The inspiration and driving force behind the work
5-1 text blurb…
Process
Illustrations and graphic design
We assigned tea blends to four landmarks central to the campaign, with ingredients sourced from the Garden’s own amenities. Flora illustrations depicting each blend and corresponding to assigned landmarks were then created in a consistent watercolor style.
Content
Content
Content
Content
Content
Content
Process
Component development
I began by exploring how the golden ginkgo and franklinia blossoms, the garden’s most iconic flora, could be embedded into the form, adding another layer of meaning to the origami’s unfolding and blossoming. Different folds were studied alongside tea brewing mechanisms, with prototypes built in CAD and Illustrator and rapidly prototyped as physical origami forms to determine the proper folding sequence, blossoming mechanism, production viability and user interaction suited for the activity and the gift’s aesthetic.
Solution
An everyday reflection
Every component engages a different sense. Every detail traces back to something the Garden actually grows, does, or believes.
A gift centered around tea that incorporates elements of the garden and highlights the new developments.
Paper & Packaging
Paper & Packaging 9-1 Subheading
Paper & Packaging 9-1 text description
BLOOM Tea Set
Bloom to brew
At the center of it all is the BLOOM Tea Set. The strainer’s form unfurls like a franklinia blossom and a ginkgo leaf simultaneously — the Garden’s two most historically significant plants rendered as a functional, daily object. Alongside it: four test-tube samples of in-house teas, each named for a distinct corner of the Garden’s grounds, and a small jar of honey sourced directly from the Garden’s own apiary.
Every component engages a different sense. Every detail traces back to something the Garden actually grows, does, or believes.
BLOOM Tea Set
Honey jar and stand
Custom honey jar and stand
This
is
just
a
snapshot
of
the
entire
design
process.
Reach
out
to
megginni.design@gmail.com
for
the
full
story!
This is just a snapshot of the entire design process.
Reach out to
megginni.design@gmail.com
for the full story!