Beautiful boxes

Those of you who know me well will know what a sucker I am for design... I'm constantly arrested by beautiful posters, album or book covers, wonderful packaging, interesting typefaces, magazine layouts etc.

So you won't be surprised when you find out I've been drooling over this little box of delights - a box of sampler teas given to us over the weekend by our dear friends Michael and Alison. These are people of wonderful taste, and they probably don't even know how much they hit the target with this.

It's a very plush little cream-coloured box adorned with beautiful typography and elegant use of space - and inside are a variety of herbal and flavoured teas, each of them individually packaged in a tiny cardboard pyramid.

They've been laid head to head in the box, so when you lift the lid it's a sequence of very satisfying and snug little geometric shapes in a range of muted colours. I find stuff like this irresistible. I almost can't bear the tought of trying one of the teas and ruining this display.

Back in the vinyl days, I was always the kid examing the gatefold or double albums and the inner sleeves with the printed lyrics, soaking up every detail of the package. I've been known to buy certain 50s Blue Note jazz albums just because the cover looks really cool. Now I find not much has changed.