Original Packaging Design
Seattle Chocolate Co Truffle Bars
Seattle Chocolate Company
Packaging Design Rebrand
As part of a packaging design class at STAMPS School of Art and Design, I redesigned packaging for a set of Seattle Chocolate Company's truffle bars. The goal was to create three iterations in varying extremities of design, one close to the original, one futuristic, and one halfway between.
The Seattle Chocolate Company has a wide list of values they support such as being carbon neutral, eco-friendly, and educating their customers on their fair trade chocolate making process in Peru. For my packaging design, I wanted to incorporate these values and and at the same time adding an element of personalization by rebranding each chocolate flavor as a Peruvian animal that corresponds with each, for example the Oxelot being the "Go Getter" espresso chip truffle bar,
The first iteration is closer to the original design of the truffle bar artwork yet still brings it together with a more uniform color scheme and style, The second is a lot cleaner and presents itself more as a canvas for each piece of animal artwork while the third is futuristic, bold and modern,
Packaging design mockups created May 2023 using InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Procreate for a University of Michigan STAMPS School of Art and Design Packaging course
In order to plan my redesign for the Seattle Chocolate Co Truffle Bars, I wanted to asses what could be improved about the existing designs and how they could be changed to have a stronger brand identity, I noticed the colors are all completely different pallettes on each bar and there isn''t much tying the bars together in a theme. As you may notice, the first bar is completely different in style than the last. This is because the Seattle Chocolate Co hires local artists to design each bar differently- I wanted my designs to tie everything together in a more uniform way while keeping this playful, artistic look.
My first iteration kept this "wrapping paper" style of busy, full artwork while being tied together with the updated, more clean brown logo. Each of these designs and its colors expresses one of the four Peruvian animals on the outside, and has a simple solid inside label adorned with elements from the outside illustratioons. On each of the designs I pulled a color from the overall palette for the top of the nutrition label to have each Truffle bar hint at the other bar's color scheme. This fun, busy look is not far from the original style of the Seattle Chocolate Company Truffle bars yet has a more consistent and upbeat look.
Similar to Original Design
Iteration One
Farther in differentiation to Original Design
Iteration Two
My second iteration has artwork that is less busy and more centered and simple, giving each Truffle a "canvas" look to it. I really wanted to encourage the viewer to think of these bars as a collectible series like each is a work of art they are looking to buy as a whole. With the second iteration, I changed the color of each logo to match the bar and add individuality to each piece while maintaining the overall color palette, There are less of each animal included in the second iteration designs because each illustration is more of a simple, focused in design on the creature and how its personality matches the chocolate flavor. For example, on "The Mystique" bar, the snake has a monocle, on "The Go Getter" bar, and the Ocelot has a cup of coffee.
"Futuristic" Design
Iteration Three
My third iteration varies the most from the original design as it is a lot more graphic, simple, and shape-based. As part of our prior research to making our designs, we did color palette and brand forecasting to estimate looks that might be reflected in packaging design in the year 2026.These gradient designs came up as popular so I incorporated whimsical, futuristic gradients of each bar's color scheme as the inside label. I also used this same approach as each animal's backdrop in somewhat of a "cutout" style. I intend for this series to look more like one whole piece of art as a collection rather than four individual collectible bars that look good together.
Brand Redesign
Proposal Deck
Before I arrived at the point of having my three iterations, all of the planning and research about the company we did in this class was necessary in order to have the right outcome. We did customer profiling, palette re selection, logo redesign, and research on the leadership, marketing, and more. Here is where I learned about the values of the company and what they are trying to do for their customers in order to move forward and make designs that would projectively be successful if this project were to be launch by the company in the near or far future.
