Visual design for Dim Sum Library's afternoon tea — menus, packaging, and illustration.
Hospitality · Print Design · Packaging · Illustration
Challenge
Dim Sum Library's afternoon tea had been running since opening, but wasn't performing. The brief was to redesign the experience from the ground up - menus, packaging, illustration, every piece a guest touches.
I developed the visual language across the whole system: the drinks menu, food menu, tea caddies, illustrations, and supporting collateral.
Visual language
Black and gold, art deco geometry, paper texture. The starting point was the restaurant itself - the system just needed to actually reflect it. Watercolour-style illustration brought in warmth without losing the formality of the space.
Packaging - Library Reserve No. 8
Tea caddy and label for Library Reserve No. 8. Black and gold, art deco, consistent with the interior. The original name was No. 4 - I flagged that the number carries strong negative associations in Chinese culture before anything went to print. It became No. 8. The label was signed off on the first submission.
drinks & food menu
Six-panel accordion fold. Each panel covers one tea - watercolour illustration, four drink options across cocktail, mocktail, bubble tea, and hot tea. The reverse has brewing notes and a botanical of the loose-leaf tea. The format needed to make a layered, dice-driven concept feel immediate and intuitive for guests. A5, paper-texture background with an original illustration for each of the eight dishes. The layout mirrors how the tea is served - three tiers, top to bottom, arriving to guests in a bird cage.
Before
After
Pre-opening brand work
The paper-texture aesthetic and illustration approach started here - a fake newspaper, launch leaflet, and belly wrap for dim sum takeaway boxes, used across pre-opening events and video content. Tea Tales builds directly on this visual language.
