Vitalitea
Project Scope
Website Design and Functionality, Product Images
About the Client
Vitalitea is a St. Louis–based tea brand founded by Jessica Bonskowski. The brand offers powdered tea packets made from unique blends of flavored teas that can be mixed at home to create colorful gradient iced teas. Vitalitea sells its products online through a Shopify storefront.
The Challenge
Jessica reached out for help creating product photography for the website to better showcase the teas and their vibrant gradient effect. She also wanted customers to be able to customize their own tea packets by selecting four different flavors, but needed assistance setting up a product configuration that allowed for this option within Shopify.
client original images
Updated Images
Jessica and I began with an in-depth discovery call to better understand her vision for the brand imagery. She shared that she was looking for visuals with a boho aesthetic, vibrant gradient liquids, and a seasonal, holiday-inspired feel that would elevate the look of the website beyond her personal product photos. To achieve this, I used detailed AI image generation prompting combined with Photoshop editing to create the final visuals.
From a strategic perspective, I also noticed that the website imagery made the product appear to be a ready-to-drink iced beverage rather than a powdered tea packet. To clarify the customer experience, I created additional images that show the tea packet, powder, and mixing tools alongside a pitcher of water. This helps communicate that customers receive a packet that they mix themselves at home.
Custom Tea Website Functionality
While experimenting with Shopify’s built-in product options, I discovered that offering four flavor selections with over 50 options each created more product variations than Shopify allows. Because of this limitation, Jessica’s goal of letting customers fully customize their tea packets couldn’t be achieved using Shopify’s default settings.
After researching alternative solutions, I found a tool that generates custom dropdown menu code compatible with Shopify. I implemented this code and manually added the full list of flavor options, creating four dropdown menus so customers could easily select their preferred flavor combination.
After testing the functionality together, we confirmed that the solution allowed Jessica to receive clear and organized custom orders, making it simple for her to see which four flavors each customer selected and prepare the product accordingly. I also updated the product page with the new imagery to better highlight the customization process and clearly show the tea packet that customers receive once their order ships.
