BOBA CONSTRICTOR – ART DIRECTION

Given my fondness for boba milk tea, I thought it would be a cute idea to create a brand called “Boba Constrictor” (or 蚺蛇珍珠奶茶 in Chinese) and have as much fun with it as possible. The work on this page represents my explorations into realizing the brand.

Boba tea, more commonly known in the United States and other english speaking countries as “bubble tea,” is a delicious Taiwanese milk tea drink. Though other toppings are available, the words “boba” and “bubble” refer to the chewy tapioca balls at the bottom of each cup. Boba straws are wide enough to allow for the tapioca to be sucked up through them.

STORE PHOTOS

outside street photo of a Boba Constrictor bubble tea shop to-go window on a sidewalk

Boba Constrictor cups of taro and oolong milk tea. Their respective flavor illustrations are printed onto the side of the clear plastic cups, and the lids are different colors according to the flavors.

For the adventurous foodies out there, how often have you ordered a new food or drink, only to have soon forgotten which flavor you even ordered? That’s the result of over-stuffed menus and visual uniformity. Boba Constrictor prevents these issues by making each flavor an intrinsic part of the overall brand.

There are only nine flavor variations of the Boba Constrictor mascot, each with a custom colorway. These logo/mark variants appear on their respective Boba Constrictor drink cups, lids, merch, and other in-store applications. By visually emphasizing the uniqueness of the nine flavors, Boba Constrictor consciously reinforces the brand’s commitment to a limited menu, and to quality over quantity. The unique colorways also lend themselves to a variety of marketing campaigns and merch drops, and foster customer loyalty to preferred flavors.

As for the flavors, you won’t find any vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry here. These nine flavors reflect classic staples found in traditional boba shops all over the world:

Boba Constrictor snake and cup illustration - taro flavor

Boba Constrictor snake and cup illustration - thai flavor

SOCIAL MEDIA VIDEOS

I created this series of short-form videos to advertise the Boba Constrictor merch line on social media. Understanding that Boba is less a drink and more a cultural signifier, I knew the importance of choosing music for these videos that would be compelling to Boba Constrictor’s target demographic. To further educate myself, I had fun exploring KPop and various related genres of asian pop music. I then intentionally selected tracks based on their popularity, online virality, and/or their loose association to the respective flavor/color pairing. (For example, it was important to me that a song by Thai artists be used for the Thai Tea flavor.)

I began this series by editing the videos directly in TikTok, using only the platform’s in-app editing tools. As my ambition grew with each edit, I quickly found that it was easier for me to produce the videos in Adobe After Effects rather than TikTok. This allowed for much more customization and control over the final edit.