10 weeks
School Project
Branding, environmental design, layout
Landing page, mockups, marketing, advertising, copywriting, research, logo development
Oasis Tea Zone is a bubble tea store well known for its bubble tea, food, and late-night lounging area.
Oasis’s branding experience is different across all digital and physical spaces. The challenge was to create a rebrand that was consistent and cohesive across all media and environments in order to increase sales and improve customer experience.
Develop a logo and a design system that encompasses who Oasis really is as a brand and how it can consistently be applied across all media. Create a brand guidebook containing rules and uses for brand elements such as logos, typography, color, tone, and voice to help other designers maintain brand consistency.
Oasis Tea Zone is a family-run business that specializes in boba and tea. It was founded in 2001 and acts as a premier spot to lounge, eat food, and play classic board games. It’s known for its incredibly large drink selection that is completely customizable. Located in key spots like near Uwajimaya and nearby colleges, they are a popular place for young adults and others to meet and hang out with friends.
In order to fully understand the brand and the people we’re designing for, we conducted in-person research at one of their stores to experience what it was like as a customer. It was pretty clear the Oasis experience was different in many physical and digital spaces. This also outlined the brand’s pain points and allowed us to prioritize what needed a rebrand the most.
We also were able to identify some key competitors to see what was working and what wasn’t in order for us to incorporate successful, enduring trends in our own design.
We identified the primary audience as college students, who have a bit of spending money and want a place to lounge or to study. The secondary audience we identified as young adults who have jobs, but not yet family commitments, due to the fact they have a bit of extra time and money to lounge around with friends.
We determined our personas based on our identified audiences and our research. We aimed to have Dennis and Fiona encompass two very different people on the spectrum of our target demographic in order to be as inclusive as possible moving forward.
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Through a dot exercise within a group, three adjectives were highlighted to be the best descriptions of what Oasis was; “inviting, fun and unique”. This was based on sorting photos on a spectrum of "What We Are" and "What We Are Not" from the perspective of Oasis. These three adjectives were the most commonly used terms that were used when we listed reasons for picking the photos in the "What We Are" category.
A sticky note exercise was conducted to identify where Oasis positions itself as a brand within the following territories. The exercise showed the most sticky notes in the “Offer” territory, allowing us to write a brand positioning statement.
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"The Oasis Tea brand is positioned in the offer territory (product). Its top brand attributes which support its brand position are late-night boba cafe, fast service, games, and a hangout spot for any size group.
For customers looking to treat themselves or others, Oasis Tea Zone is the family-owned, Seattle-based boba cafe that efficiently offers delicious, highly-customizable varieties of boba and other snacks.
Our brand is chosen because it's an inviting space for individuals and groups to gather during the day and into the late-night."
"We believe in great boba and fun times. That's why we provide affordable, quickly made, customizable boba for any occasion. Every night is game night at Oasis, where we have arcade games, board games, and specialty nights where every drink is a reward."
"We are a unique, fun, and inviting experience. Oasis Tea Zone is a locally-owned place where people can come to enjoy delicious boba and good company. As a family-owned bubble tea cafe, our brand stands out for groups to gather in a unique space during the day and into the late-night, with highly-customizable varieties of bubble tea, delicious snacks, and exciting games to meet each individual's needs."
Through several iterations, we created tonal territory boards for each adjective, “inviting”, “fun”, and “unique”. Every photo that contained these adjectives from the previous exercises was now collected on their appropriate board so we could identify line weights, typography, photo composition, color, and background. The second iteration flushed out supporting adjectives that did not feel as supportive or redundant and allowed us to come up with a color palette. The final tonal territory boards allowed us to condense information, even more, giving three style boards to move forward with.
In this exercise, we took the same three adjectives, compiled supporting adjectives underneath, and spent time pairing words. At first, “unapologetically fun and sweet” felt on brand, however it was hard to say naturally when presented as the slogan. and we got tongue-tied easily. When saying “welcome sweet adventure”, it was not as hard to say, and instead gave a short, sweet, and memorable solution for the brand slogan.
In order to create a concept board, we compiled the photos from the tonal territories and experimented with how photography, typography, textures, and vector assets all look together. Seeing how the elements worked together was helpful and required several iterations of adding and refining. We wanted to include filters, typographic lockups, and environmental spaces to have a direction for the final deliverables.
For the final concept board, we dropped the swirl vector as it felt too strong and bold for the hazy, soft gradient look we were going for. The variety of circle vectors represents the variety and customization of boba the store offers. The one circle going from a smaller line weight to a larger line weight in the middle was pivotal for the brand, it felt authentic, fun, and unique. The concept board also provided solutions for several photography treatments.
At first, we sketched individually, free from any outside influence, before comparing sketches and dot voting on interesting lockups. We refined the favorites in Illustrator to see typography and lockups in a better space. From the top favorite, we knew what fonts and lockup we wanted and explored this again in more detail.
The final black and white logo used space to create an aesthetically pleasing layout, the scale and location of “oasis” and “tea zone” automatically created a hierarchy, and the dot of the eye fit with our previous concept board elements, representing the boba in bubble tea. Breaking the line of the cup with tea zone also felt inviting, calling back to our brand adjectives established at the beginning of the project.
We were able to solve for color and create logo rules for the brand guidebook. The colors were drawn from the concept board and provided an even stronger hierarchy with the logo.
Outdoor Signage
Indoor Brand Wall
The idea behind the brand wall was to add to customer experience as soon as a guest walked into the store. For users who relate to Fiona, they can refer to the customer recommendations and photos on the brand wall without feeling lost or overwhelmed when looking at the menu.
These brand wall recommendations and stickers can not only be interchangeable on the wall, but they also can be advertised on social media. Marketing higher-priced drinks and add-ons is a solution to increasing word-of-mouth and average sales.
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athenasfikas@gmail.com
