Tofu Lift

Background

In the summer of 2022, I created two shirt designs for Tofu Lift. Tofu Lift is a lifestyle brand that unites members of the fitness community. As the name suggests, Tofu Lift draws inspiration from the simplicity, versatility, and nourishment of tofu to create a lifestyle brand dedicated to the fitness community.

I decided to take a little break from working on my portfolio and go back to my graphic design roots. The company loved my artistic style and wanted me specifically for the brand, so I decided why not?

The Meeting...

The CEO of Tofu Lift reached out to me asking if I was interested in creating T-shirt designs for the company. During this time, I was facing a lot of mental fog and creative block in terms of my design work, so I was hesitant in taking on the project. After taking some time to consider, I realized that this project was something new and fresh that could potentially bring me out of my block. I contacted the CEO of Tofu Lift and we set up a meeting the next day.

In the initial meeting, we discussed what needed to be designed and the underlying goals. Together, we brainstormed a couple ideas for the graphics. I took on the project with two requirements in mind:

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The design had to be tofu inspired

🎨

The company loved my artistic style and wanted my style to be integrated into the brand

We agreed to reconvene once the initial sketches were ready for review.

Sketching Pt. 1

Feeling excited, I dove straight into sketching after the meeting. For the first time in 2 months, I was looking forward to designing.

From what we discussed, I integrated tofu in the sketches in two ways:
1. Tofu Packaging
2. Mapo Tofu

Sketching Pt. 2

Another thing that the CEO made clear was that I could integrate my own artistic style, so I sketched out tofu characters that could be combined with the previous sketches.

Concept Validation

Once I contacted the stakeholders about the finished sketches, we set up a meeting to validate the sketches. The concept validation with stakeholders was necessary to determine which design to proceed with and to ensure that the sketches matched the brand and stakeholder’s vision.

During the meeting, I reviewed the designs with the stakeholders and they gave their feedback on the sketches.

High Fidelity

The high-fidelity iteration step was crucial for polishing the chosen designs and deciding on a color combination. This step followed the concept validation, as stakeholders had approved the sketches, making it worthwhile to invest time and energy into detailed digital versions. I transferred the sketches into digital designs using Illustrator and created the color iterations based on stakeholder requests. The outcome was a set of digitized designs with color options that we had discussed.

The decision for the colors was based on the original packaging of tofu that one would see at the store. For the mapo tofu, I took color inspiration from the original dish.

Final Check-In

Finally, the validation step with stakeholders was necessary to finalize the design and color combinations. I presented the designs to the stakeholders, discussing the merits of each color combination. In the end we decided to move forward with the green variant as it is more commonly recognizable.

Final Design: Tofu Inspired Shirts

Mapo Tofu Shirt

Tofu Box Shirt

Both designs took inspiration from tofu, integrating this unique element seamlessly into the overall concept. By combining my artistic style with the tofu characters, I was able to create illustrations that are both visually appealing and aligned with the original vision.

Project Outcome

I transformed the old, bland T-shirts into trendy, on-brand fashion pieces led to a sales surge of over 20% within just a few hours.
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Reflection & Takeaways
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1. During this time, I was facing a lot of mental fog and creative block in terms of my design work. However, this project was something new and fresh that I actually looked forward to doing. I’m glad I challenged myself to do freelance, even though I wasn’t in the best place creatively.

2. After this project, I realized that I really enjoy freelance, considering it helped me get out of my creative rut. I was very lucky that the stakeholders allowed me to have full creative control over this project. Freelance has allowed me to work on diverse projects, where I have to quickly adapt to varying requirements of different clients.