28/02/2018

Forget 11, this goes to 70

Established in 2011, Cacao 70 launched originally as a single chocolate drinking bar in Montréal, Québec, and has grown to be a significant Canadian chocolatier through bean sourcing, product development, and new store concepts. There are now 14 locations across Canada — including Montréal, Toronto, and Vancouver — where they have one of their three establishments: Eatery, for brunch, lunch, and sweets; Sweet House, with all kinds of sweet treats; and Dip Shop, serving ice cream dipped in chocolate. They also sell their own products, including bars, dips/fondues, and hot cocoa powders. Last year, Cacao 70 introduced a new identity and packaging designed by Montréal- and Tokyo-based In Good Company.

Sample of old look.

For Cacao 70, we created a whole new brand strategy, going to market strategy, and visual identity to fit their ambitions. A whimsical world, to make us dream and be transported to new flavours.

In Good Company project page

Wordmark.

Full logo.

Logo system.

The old logo was a bad interpretation of the old Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf logo with some misplaced corporate type — that “CACAO 70” wordmark was like something you would see on the cover of a telco brochure. Clearly, their logo (or old look) didn’t stop them from growing and delivering great chocolate but with the new logo (and look) the identity matches a lot better what seems to be a delicious product. The wordmark is done in an elegant, beautiful, and striking chiseled serif where each character has a great personality of its own — those “C”s! — and it also happens to be a great combination of repeating characters, two “C”s, two “A”s, and basically two “O”s, with the “7” adding a similar angle to the “A”. Anyway, too much rhapsodizing about that wordmark. In addition, there is a chocolate-churner icon that is kind of awkward, lacking the elegance and crispness of the wordmark, which is a little unfortunate as it appears everywhere. I mean, it’s not horrible, but it stands out in the wrong way.

Identity elements.

Illustration style and typographic arrangements.

Bars.

The chocolate bars are like a mid-week Friday Likes treat. These are just lovely and amazing with great illustrations and a beautiful color palette accentuated by my fave, gold foil. Aside from it being eye candy, the typography and hierarchy throughout the product range is very well managed.