Chocolate Bar Packaging
Challenge: Create a memorable take away for an event that already offers tons of memorabilia while keeping in theme with the event. Design comic-themed packaging without infringing on any pop-culture copyrights. Highlight the event’s 50th anniversary and the venue’s 30th anniversary.
Solution: A suite of chocolate bar packaging that sells out every year, no matter how many bars are created that year. The fans go wild to get their hands on these limited edition chocolate bars that are brought to life through creative, unique, timely and fun packaging.
Process: The chefs from our food and beverage team come up with a handful of recipes which are presented to a core group of taste-testers. We have fun tasting the chocolates and narrow the options down to a final four bars. From there, the design process begins.
As the first step, I lead the marketing team in a brainstorming exercise to come up with names for each bar. We do this through a keyword activity while focusing on the ingredients of each chocolate bar and the way that specific flavor makes us feel, what memories it evokes, what pop-culture references it makes us think of, and so on. Once we have a list of all the memories, thoughts and emotions, we then brainstorm again to find catchy phrases and keywords that “pop” and lend themselves to a themed name.
From there, I take the names we collaboratively decided on and create mood boards for each chocolate bar. I also look for ideas within my everyday life, such as mural walls that catch my interest as I’m walking through downtown, architectural details I see while traveling, color combos that make me smile, songs that I just can’t help but dance to…you get the idea. After crafting my mood boards, I start to sketch out some ideas — the old fashioned way, with pencil against paper. Some of those ideas make it to the next step, where I scan and vectorize, or redraw the ideas in Illustrator, tweak and distort these items to create yet another abstract form of my original idea until I feel like it’s just right. From there I begin to apply color, texture and play with typography. Sometimes I’ll create patterns or apply stylized effects which all contributes to toward bringing the packaging full circle.
Next, I share the drafts with the marketing team by posting them to our ideation board. There, they sit for a few days so we can each critique them with fresh eyes over the span of a few days. I take any feedback shared and fine-tune the design until it feels like the packaging was always part of the chocolate bar.
Once the design is complete, the team collaborates again to unveil the chocolate bars and build excitement in a countdown to the event. This includes an exclusive sneak peek to VIPs within the organization, followed by a press release and social media teasers.
Finally, the bars are sold at the event in a decorated booth themed to compliment the packaging as well as the event. The booth decor is also designed by yours truly.