Take Five…. design’s top posh chocolates
One category. Every two weeks. Five of the world’s most charismatic designs.
Welcome to Take 5 where The Drum, along with jones knowles ritchie (JKR) Singapore strategy director Katie Ewer, take a bi-weekly look at some of the design industry’s best imagined packaging design where you, the reader, are in control.
Every other Friday we’ll pick a theme and ask you to submit the design you feel deserves a top spot. You’ll have one week to get your entries in, the votes will be counted and the best of lot will be published the following Friday. (Make sure you scroll down to find out the next topic winging its way).
Would you like to know how to design a posh chocolate bar? Step 1: Pick a range of pretty patterns. Make sure they’re colourful and diverse. Step 2: Apply a small label to the centre or top of the pack. Ensure the label is white or cream and features sans serif black type and perhaps a small monogram or etched illustration. A simple border is a nice extra but not mandatory. Step 3: Er, that’s it.
And now here are some brands that put substance before style.
Prestat
It sounds French, but it has a Royal Warrant. Its graphics are all traditional, but its colours are completely bonkers. It’s a trippy mash-up of Versailles, Willy Wonka and Alexander McQueen. Prestat has just the right amount of wrong. Love.
Marou
Ah, the exotic art-deco-tropic vibe of this bean-to-bar Vietnamese chocolate brand. Each bar is from a different area of Vietnam,. Each uses a colour inspired by the surprisingly technicolour tones of cocoa pods. In a world where the codes of craft are the default setting for small, artisanal brands like this one, Marou has a language that is joyful and charismatic.
Green and Black’s
There’s a lot of chocolate packaging out there that really overdoes it on the quirky quotient. I like the fact that Green and Black’s feels quietly confident. The ‘green’ refers to the ethos of the founders, and ‘black’ to the chocolate. There’s an elegantly crafted logotype, and a leaf motif that is (sometimes) used cleverly. In short, Green and Black’s looks like the market leader it is.
100% Chocolate Café
Posh chocolate packaging tends to be ornate and embellished to signal the value of the product within. 100% Chocolate Café, which has its own range of chocolate bars, is refreshingly different. It’s Japanese of course – which explains the perfect pitch of functionalism and craft.
The Berkeley Hotel
Okay, this one’s not really a brand, but it does use copy to great effect. It’s one of the complimentary in-room gifts given to guests at the Berkeley Hotel in London. Speaks for itself really.