I don’t know about you, but I dies for chocolate at a semi-insane capacity. I’m not saying it rules my world…but if I could rule a world made of it, I totally would! Anyway, enough about my love affair, let’s talk about Newfoundland Chocolate Company! I first encountered this brand while living on the mainland. I remember my first taste, smooth, rich and so goodddddd!!! So how do you brand such a fun and exciting company?
Many elements go into branding, from focus groups to surveys, client meetings to brainstorming sessions. The first step on this journey was to meet with the fine folks at NCC and get their take on what Newfoundland Chocolate is all about. Then, enter the focus group.
The focus group helped us nail down general public thought about Newfoundland Chocolate. With them, we were able to figure out what consumers thought about the current look and feel of the company.
With those results in, we called in the client for a recap. We now had a rough outline for the next evolution of the NCC brand.
The client had requested a couple of elements they would love to have incorporated into the design. “No problem!” we said. “That’s what we do!” we said. Well, some things are easier said than done… In this case we were presented with the challenge of creating an illustrated version of their iconic downtown location that could be worked into the logo / wordmark.
We were faced with two main issues:
- The icon needed to have just enough detail to be legible at any size, without losing important details at small sizes. This is a common issue in design—it can be quite the dance— but it’s so sweet when you’ve achieved that happy medium.
- The icon needed to function as a one colour design. It’s a tricky balance to create an intricate one-colour icon without having it turn into a tangled mess of lines.
To overcome these issues we took to the page. We drew over 20+ different versions of the building on paper before bringing our favourite version into the digital realm. This is where we really drilled into tweaking and reducing the icon down to its most basic shape. The end result was a very clean and minimalistic illustration of their iconic building that can be used at any size.
The next key ingredient to any good branding is a strong wordmark, and any strong wordmark starts with solid typeface. I love chocolate immensely, but we love the typeface Avenir just a tiny bit more! Avenir is a geometric sans serif typeface that is sharp, refined and modern with a slight organic style within its letterforms. It immediately seemed like a wise choice for NCC. Avenir hints at luxury, but an attainable luxury. A delectable treat you can have without breaking the bank. Once that typeface was nailed down, we chose a complimentary typeface called Modum. Modum is a slab-serif style font, with tall condensed letterforms that speak to the traditional feeling of handcrafted goods.
The overall design of the wordmark was intended to have a very traditional handcrafted feel with the words “artisan crafted” placed above the wordmark, and the founding year emblazoned below. We wanted this treatment to reflect early century storefront signs and emblems.
To top it all off, we created a second emblem-style logo that uses all those same elements in an alternate treatment. This version is intended to be used for stickers, packages or seals. It also gives NCC flexibility in the future package and chocolate designs!
We’re pretty proud of this one, so be sure to keep an eye out for the smooth new branding in the Newfoundland Chocolate Company store downtown, and their brand new location in the Avalon Mall!
