Brief 2 - Initial Ideas

Today Charlie and I officially started our collaborative brief. As we had both spent some time gathering visuals of the kinds of aesthetic and style we wanted to go for, it gave us a good starting point for our discussion.

With this discussion we drew out two mind maps showing exactly what we wanted to achieve in doing the project.

The main idea was to create a luxurious chocolate brand, and potentially a store. This is still what we want to do, and with the research we have both conducted, we can definitely do this in a productive and informed way, knowing what we want to do.

The first thing we both agreed on was that a simple, but effective logo design is something that we wanted. We wanted this to be one colour and something that would be flexible in terms of production, so we could potentially foil it or vinyl cut it. In terms of typography, we agreed on something contemporary like a sans serif, however we might explore the idea of a serif or slightly more decorative font.

We made a start on the colour scheme that we wanted, agreeing that we wanted dark brown to be the main colour, as we would like to do packaging in this. It definitively represents chocolate, and being a darker shade of brown, it will link into the luxurious side which we want to put across. To contrast against this we would like o use a slightly off white instead of white. This adds a bit more of the luxury side to it, and is something we can experiment with in terms of stock choices. We like the idea of looking for stock instead of just printing the colour.

As well as this, we have discussed gold and silver, however these would be foiled, not printed. We haven't decided which colour yet, but this will be informed when we get further into the overall design visuals for the brand.

Packaging is the main element of this brief, and is something we want to explore in terms of variety and suitability for the products. The products we have decided on are:

• Bar
• Truffles
• Cocoa Powder
• Chips/Buttons
• Spread
• Eclairs

With these products, we want each to have their own individual packaging. We want to use jars for products such as the truffles, powder and spread, foil wrapping for the bars, and bags for the chips/buttons and eclairs.

For the jars, we both liked the idea of having white vinyl on the glass, and then a sticker on the lid, perhaps explaining the product etc.

For the bars we would like to use both foil and paper, however we are not sure how this will be done yet - if the paper will be a slip with the foil visible, or go around the full product with the foil beneath it.

We have also considered the use of gift boxes/bags/wrapping that would be necessary in having a chocolate shop. Something will be needed for customers to be able to take the goods away. Gift boxes will be good for potentially creating a pack of one product, or mix of products, much like a hamper of some kind. We have also spoken about the idea of customers creating their own jars of truffles etc. so that needs to be thought about as well.

We will also be doing the corporate branding side to the brief - letterheads, stationary etc, and include brand guidelines. As well as this, we will be doing the shop ephemera - such as assistant aprons, tags, etc.

We also explored possible routes to go down after completing the main part of this brief, such as the promotional side, creating a website and product book which would be sent out to potential customers etc.

Following these decisions we moved onto choosing a name. We thought about the idea of potentially making the brand Swiss or Belgian as these are two very prominent nations in Chocolate. With this, we thought about the different words associated with chocolate, ranging from the taste to a more literal meaning of the word. We tried these in English, French and Dutch.

At the minute we've got a few names which we are leaning towards:

• Doux - french for 'sweet'
• Luxe - frech for 'luxury'
• Coco
• Cacao

We have decided that this is a good point to conclude our meeting and will each come up with a few ideas for logos and names individually before our next meeting.