Brand «Rossiya – schedraya dusha!» is the first brand who decided to take a place in the mass market segment with a line of handmade chocolate. Samples of the chocolate were planed to be made by hand and reproduce the result on an industrial scale in the future. The original product conception required shift in the visual focus from the packaging to what was inside it.
The team of agency has moved beyond the «standard» branding approach when the all system of design build around packaging and has concentrated attention on chocolate. The designers were completely and fully immersed in the creative process, because the project was the pure art.
— This project was an incredible experiment and at the same time it was a risk, - says Alexander Khitrin, head of the production of chocolate bars «Rossiya – schedraya dusha!». — We abandoned the industrial modeling of chocolate, which is the norm for the confectionery industry, and made a fairly free brief for the creative agency. The task was to create not just visually interesting chocolate, but chocolate-sensation, which the consumer has never seen before and it is unlikely to be found even in the most expensive chocolate boutiques.
— We were faced with an unusual task, which at some point even seemed impossible, — says Zhenya Struk, art director of Depot, about the project. - After all, we had to manually create unique chocolates, the shape and design which will be repeated by machine in the future.
She tried to make the first samples in her kitchen. She melted chocolate on her own, poured it into molds and tried to immerse herself in the working process of a professional chocolatier.
— Everything did not work out right away, - Zhenya shares the subtleties of the work process. — We drew the design on the computer, then we tried to make a chocolate bar according to the created sketch. We sent the results which we liked to production and it turned out that the equipment could not perform this or that element. And we had to start all over again.
Creating a design for such a chocolate bar may seem to someone is not difficult— complains Zhenya. It is no big deal melt the chocolate, pour in nuts, crisps. Maybe it is simple within one chocolate bar. But when it comes to the industrial production of chocolate, which is made in a craft style, the ability to replicate the bar, the design development process is very complicated.
The designers had to understand all the subtleties of the production to find out: what kind of drawing it can recreate according to the developed 3D model of a chocolate bar. The result of the project was chocolate, in which the Depot team managed to preserve the unique aesthetics of handmade work. So now everyone can buy it in a near store and try a real confectionery work of art.
Of course, the design of the «Golden Mark» also conveys the uniqueness of the product design, without breaking out of the general visual style of the lines «Rossiya – schedraya dusha!». The front side of the package shows an imitation of a transparent window, in which the texture and elements of tile decoration are visible. In total, three «duets» of flavors with their own design were developed: «in caramel», «in milk» and «in strawberry».
