Need to Know
13 : 06 : 19

UK – The new brand appeals to a younger generation of tea drinkers with its combination of bold packaging, unusual flavour fusions and direct-to-consumer model.

Offblak rethinks how tea is delivered both physically and visually. As well as offering new flavour combinations such as mint and chocolate or orange and jasmine, the brand puts a contemporary twist on traditional flavours such as Earl Grey.

The brightly coloured packaging is designed with social media in mind, in keeping with the tagline ‘drink tea like everyone’s watching’. Each slimline box features playful designs from illustrator Thomas Hedger, which symbolise each tea’s mood and effect while distinguishing the brand’s four core categories: Fully Charged, Chill Out, Glow and Caff Free.

‘Our identity needed to redefine the category and capture Offblack’s zero-compromise on taste and excitement while being brave and direct,’ says founder Dmitry Klochkov.

To learn more about how designers are approaching visual communication around food in new ways, read our Future Foodscapes design direction.

Beijing – The PuXuan Hotel and Spa is a luxury hotel for art collectors attending China Guardian Auctions.

The hotel has opened in the Guardian Art Center, the new headquarters of China Guardian Auctions on the edge of the historic Forbidden City. It acts as a facilitator between global collectors and the auction house, with various features catering for its high-end guests, such as a private television channel for proxy bidding and an in-room safe large enough to hold a few small artworks.

Filled with a number of antique and contemporary art pieces, alongside artisanal furniture by home-grown brand Shang Xia, the hotel aims to provide a high-end experience for its art world guests. Chinese heritage is also woven into The PuXuan’s guest experience, with ancient healing techniques used in its spa and a dedicated Cantonese restaurant and tea room.

The launch of The PuXuan shows how auction houses are diversifying into areas such as hospitality order to retain relevance among younger, wealthy consumers.

London – The latest project by Above&Below proposes a new way of seeing, consuming and reproducing objects.

Above the Surface is an augmented reality (AR) sculpture and audio-visual experience. Users are invited to wear AR goggles, which allows them to see digital skins hovering over five 3D-printed objects. The five objects then morph to become new items, representing the essential human needs such as sleep, food, water, air and shelter.

With overproduction one of the biggest environmental problems in the world, the design studio believes that a new way of seeing could help us re-use objects rather than accumulating more. According to a press release, the project ‘asks whether the digital world may be the future of sustainable consumption or if it will lead to negative effects, such as another billboard for advertisement, another platform for hacking or the loss of important and healthy tactility.’

As explored in our macrotrend Programmable Realities, digital technology can be used to add a new layer to previously static objects, transforming the retail, entertainment and hospitality industries.

Mobile internet will account for 31% of global media consumption by 2021, according to the latest Media Consumption Forecasts report by Zenith. The study, which found that consumers will spend 800 hours on mobile internet this year – the equivalent of 33 days without sleep – studied the media habits of people across 57 countries.

Although the amount of time spent reading newspapers, watching tv and using desktop computers has fallen, consumers’ appetite for radio and cinema has remained robust. Between 2014 and 2019, radio listening rose from 53 minutes to 55 and time spent at the cinema increased from 1.8 minutes to 3 minutes a day on average. Zenith credits this rise to a boom in cinema attendance in China.

The traditional cinema is in flux, as venues such as PY1 integrate technology, art and music to herald a new, multi-faceted future for leisure.