After receiving feedback on the various sketched ideas, 3 main digital concepts were developed. These were informed entirely by the research made, with careful consideration made in terms of the imagery, typography, materials and overall compositions.
Idea 1 - It was found in the research stages that black is a luxurious colour. Whilst many luxury brands use black, it was also found that younger audiences are attracted to brighter hues. As the target audience for this project is 'young professionals', where the product will be placed in 'high-end delis, gift shops and gourmet food fairs', a balance essentially needs to be made between bright and dark elements, as potential consumers in such shops will be young and slightly older. As a starting point, an off-black background was used to slightly hint at this luxury aspect.As the brief asked for designs to revolve around the origins of cocoa, the most obvious visual response to take was to incorporate imagery of the cocoa plant, and its environment, into the packaging. When looking at images of rainforests, one clear visual aspect that was noticed is the significance of depth; leaves and plants all overlap and cover different fields of space. To try and recreate this natural aesthetic, images collected of cocoa trees were cut out and layered in Photoshop at different opacities. This pushed some elements further back, and brought others to the foreground - the cocoa plant being the main visual focus of the piece. The green and orange colour of leaves and trees are quite bright and contrast strongly with the black background. This creates a fairly balanced composition that has dark and bright hues - appealing to the target audience specified for this idea. The combination of images can be seen below.
To find a typeface that fits the modern, luxury aesthetic requested, research was made into various typefaces. One sans-serif typeface that stood out is Avenir Next Bold. Frutiger, the creator, describes Avenir as 'a clear and clean representation of modern typographical trends, giving the designer a typeface which is strictly modern and at the same time humane, ie suitable refined and elegant'. The typeface is clear to very legible at a small point size, has even x-heights and is very modern. For these reasons, it was incorporated into this idea.
Idea 2 - As this idea has more of a focus on celebrating cocoa exporting countries, imagery of cocoa beans was kept very subtle. In the research stages, one aspect that was found is that luxury chocolate bars tend to use foiling, finishes and high-quality stock in comparison to cheap chocolate bars. To hint at cocoa beans in this idea, a pattern was made. This would be silver-foiled onto high-quality white stock and then embossed to make the packaging look and feel luxurious.
Two countries that were incorporated into the digital designs are Brazil and the Ivory Coast. As highlighted in the research stage, Brazil's cocoa industry has just been revived and the Ivory Coast is the world's leading cocoa producer. As the brief explains that the cocoa in 'Cocoloco' products is sourced from around the World, a series of chocolate bars could be produced to celebrate the achievements of countries they source their cocoa from. To do so, colours from selected flags can be used together to create a sticker, which is stuck onto the chocolate foil. As cheap chocolate bars all tend to have one plastic wrapper, another way to make this idea more luxurious was to cover the chocolate bar in foil and place a wrapper around it. The mockups below attempt to highlight this. Essentially, the white foiled and embossed cover has a square cut out the centre. This allows the silver foiled chocolate and country-linked 'Cocoloco' sticker to show through.
After looking at the typefaces in the packaging inspiration images in more detail, it became obvious that the client is rather fond of quite rounded typefaces. To keep with the modern aesthetic, one typeface that is slightly more rounded than Avenir Next Bold is Circular Black. This is very similar, in terms of letter thickness and x-heights; however, there is a much more evident rounded appearance, particularly on certain letters such as 'C' and 'R'.
Idea 3 - As this last idea revolves around promoting the awareness of deforestation due to illegal cocoa farming, a cocoa plant tree ring was one appropriate aesthetic to focus on. To create a digital outcome, a photograph of a cocoa tree ring was image traced in Illustrator.
As the previous two ideas have used monochrome backgrounds, a more colourful approach was taken for this idea. When considering which colour to choose, I had to think about what the brand wants to be perceived as by the consumer. As 'Cocoloco' chocolate is sourced from legally farmed cocoa, where deforestation does not occur, one message that the brand would want to give to consumers if trustworthiness and loyalty. Research into colour theory indicated that blue is an appropriate colour to use - it is considered trustworthy, dependable, secure and responsible, and is arguably known to be the most popular colour choice for a brand.
As this idea is all about environmental sustainability, recycled paper was chosen to use for the wrapper of the packaging. Using sustainable materials makes the brand more believable in terms of their use of legal cocoa farmers and promotion of deforestation.
As this concept puts a heavy focus on sustainability, through the use of stock and finishes, it felt more appropriate to use a lighter typeface that does not take the attention away from the message being made. A serif typeface was therefore chosen in this sense, as a more subtle aesthetic can be achieved, whilst keeping good legibility. Bodoni 72 Oldstyle Book was chosen because it has fairly thin stems, is well-leaded, making readability easy, and is considered to be 'one of the most elegant typefaces', which is fitting for the subtle aesthetic desired.
The main outcomes produced can be seen below. These were all used to produce some 3-dimensional mockups in the following production stage.
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