- Jul 24, 2020
- 3 min read

Paul & Mike, A New Brand of Fine Chocolate Gets a Contemporary Face-Lift

Paul And Mike Chocolate by Studio Glyph

Studio Glyph partners with Synthite Industries, a global leader in fragrances and flavours to help develop a new brand of chocolate.

Two years in the making, Paul and Mike are the names of the two Caribbean cocoa experts who taught Synthite everything they needed to know about the fine art of making chocolate. The peculiar challenge we faced was the massive gap of knowledge in the market - most chocolate lovers believe ‘foreign’ chocolate is higher quality.

Whereas that is not the case. Much like the wine industry, the quality of chocolate has a lot to do with the provenance, genetics and nurture of the crop, along with precision processing techniques.

The Brand Visual:

The main distinguisher for the brand, was that they also ‘farmed’ the cocoa trees - something many can not claim to be able to do. The brand language constitutes of modern illustrations that represent the farming and processing of the cocoa, along with a colour palette that’s fun, and an illustration style that is contemporary and modern.

Pictured above are a few of the variants that are a part of the initial 10 flavour set that Paul and mike launched with. With much deliberation and discussion, certain tactical elements were designed and included in order to convey certain aspects of the brand - without explicitly saying so.

"We leveraged every face of our packaging - especially since most of our consumer base is yet to be initiated into the finer aspects of chocolate making. Here, we needed to take on the mammoth task of informing chocolate academics of the details that they look out for while buying chocolate, while not intimidating the more casual chocolate lovers. In doing so, we made the packaging a story telling tool, as well as included interesting trivia for those who were curious. We figured the Connoissuers would do their research anyway, and used the right language in our communication to get their attention. The colourful fun illustrations worked at a subdued level for our audience who isn’t very academically inclined. We used multiple tools to make our packaging as hardworking as it is." explained the designers at Studio Glyph.

Breaking down the packaging because every MM counts

"Distilling complex information is our primary challenge; our farm to bar difference."

Half the challenge in communication design lies in distilling complex information into easy tid-bits that are consumable by the audience, even without any prior knowledge of the subject. Above is a series of three steps that the designers de-coded the complex chocolate making process into, featured at the back of the packs.

For any new brand, the first order of business after the product itself, is a

photo-shoot that conveys aspects of the brand that can’t be conveyed without physically experiencing the product.

While explaining the motivation behind the graphics, Studio Glyph added "Our imagery had to convey the rustic origins of our chocolate, but with

expert precision. The materials, the lighting and the natural elements, all carefully arranged to reflect the detail of thinking that goes into this product. We worked with photographer Arundhati Rasam to create a series of images that would help us convey the texture and personality of our brand, implicitly."