Portal Tea came to us with a mission: Elevate their small chain of landmark tea shops into a fully-fledged tea brand.
After 20 years in the business, Portland-based tea company Portal Tea was ready to infuse their flavors into a nationwide market.
Portal Tea was ready to move from a small tea shop company to an elevated tea brand. Our team helped them redefine their identity with a new brand name, a comprehensive strategic framework, sophisticated packaging design, and a robust eCommerce website to support nationwide sales.
Strategy Director
"In developing Portal’s brand strategy, we wanted to capture their culture of creativity and spirit of adventure. We wanted to emphasize their expertise in tea, but remain very welcoming – as their whole philosophy revolves around the idea that tea is for everyone. Our focus was developing foundational brand elements that would help them communicate their unique take on tea."
When Portal Tea described their tea to us they said each unique flavor had the ability to transport you. Through our workshop discovery process, we dug deeper into this idea. We explored a number of different directions but ultimately landed on the name Portal. This simple but unique name for a tea company perfectly captured the idea of entering another world.
Brand Strategist
“Working with Portal Tea was an absolute joy. Their team was fully invested in the process and showed up at each stage donning their creative caps. We gained really good insight into what makes their tea, and their tea brand, different from others in the industry. When the idea that their tea has the ability to transport taste buds surfaced, we ran with it!”
Portal’s new logo design pulled inspiration from the transportive nature of the name Portal. A traditional cast iron tea kettle silhouette echoes the original logo, while the liquid interior reflects a place or landscape to which that tea can transport you.
Expanding on the landscape featured in the logo, packaging design reinforces the transformative quality of tea. The label makes intentional use of the matte finish by subtly fading a mountain skyline into the bottom of the tin. Endless permutations of custom color palettes give the packaging flexibility and the metallic effects across the design add a premium feeling.
Designer
“To create a feeling of transportation we featured tranquil scenery held within a teapot. We added unique detailing to the landscape for elegance, and chose an array of bright colors to differentiate the various tea lines.”
Our goal for website design was something rich and flavorful that immerses users in the Portal brand and their unique tea offerings. Animations help create joyful moments, and a serene color palette and beautiful photography give it an artfully simple feel. Although the site includes a lot of information and eCommerce shopping items, implementing a functional filtering system helps keep it light, approachable and easy to navigate.
Senior UI/UX Designer
“The goal for the website was to showcase the beauty, complexity, and history of tea while keeping it approachable. From curated product collections to engaging resources, the new Portal Tea website meets its customers wherever they’re at on their journey into the world of tea.”
A big part of Portal Tea’s site build was balancing custom-coded elements while leveraging Shopify’s eCommerce features. We also Integrated apps like Wishlist Engine, EcoCart, and Recharge to help deliver on our shared goals.
Senior Developer
"Shopify is a great e-commerce platform but has limitations when it comes to building multi-layered site structure and showcasing content. For Portal Tea, a company that does more than simple ecommerce, we used the CMS app, and Accentuate Custom Fields, to build more flexible templates that better fit the client’s specific needs.”
