The fascinating man behind our tea label.

Behind this hat lies a truly fascinating man. Somehow we here at Fleur De Lis Tea Company, got lucky enough to have his legendary talents shared with us, to help design our tea labels.

Martin Flanagan is a retired award winning designer. He grew up in the Mississippi, Delta helping his adopted father on his 2000 acre cotton farm. As a young adult he was almost drafted into Vietnam, A back injury prevented his draft and he went on to Louisiana Tech to pursue the commercial arts instead.

Martin is definitely a man of creative talent. He graduated with honors and went on to launch a Baton Rogue advertising agency called Grapevine Communications. Designing was at the heart of what Martin loved and he would go on later to focus his efforts on graphic design through his design company XDesign.

His creative talents, that he has masterfully developed over his life, were such a blessing to us. We had the unique need to develop and design the packaging for our teas. This would be a legend of our own, as we would be developing Louisiana's first commercially grown tea. The partnership with Martin was perfect. Two legends coming together.

Connecting Martin to Fleur De Lis Tea Company felt like it was meant to be from every step. It began through a set of wonderful connections that the relationship came to fruition. Owner David Barron, had hired the talents of Margaret Savoie as the interior designer to the tea house. She was a long time friend of Martin and recommended him to David to assist with the packaging development.

David describes his relationship with Martin as an "immediate friendship, I feel like I have known him for years".

From left to right. Martin Flanagan, David Barron and Hans Marchese.

As David got to know Martin, he learned his story, only gets better.

Martin's creative talents don't just stop at graphic design, Martin also dabbled in music as a past time. After retirement he was thrust into music after being discovered by the owner of the Red Dragon Listening Room. This led to Martin opening for the Grammy Award winners Lloyd Maines and Terri Hendrix.

Overtime, Martin's musical talents would develop. He would even finish an album with his song "Screen Door" reaching number 1 on Radio Free Texas.

As time went on, Martin would learn that his musical talents may have been inherited from a more famous source. As mentioned earlier in this post, Martin was adopted. As he got older and began to look into his health history, he began to discover some connections to the late Hank Williams. Although, he has never been able to confirm the theory, he has enjoyed sharing the story of how he might be "the illegitimate Son of a Legend".

You can listen to Martin share more about all the dots he has connected to lead him to the possibility he is the illegitimate Son of a Legend.

When you sit back and take a look at Martin's fascinating life, it is one that seems perfectly crafted. Each step leading him along his creative journey.

At 71 he is still adding his name to parts of our local history. This time by sharing his creative talents with us at Fleur De Lis Tea Company in the development of our first logo and the packaging for our tea.

We are incredibly honored to be Louisiana's first commercial tea grower and adding Martin's legendary touch to our product, just makes it that much more special.

His work as shown below is outstanding.