Recherche Toffee: The Way Toffee's Supposed to Taste
For as long as Kathy Casey can remember, toffee has been her favorite candy. But for many years, it was impossible to find one as good as she remembers from childhood. To taste truly exceptional toffee again, she knew she would have to create it. Fueled by her passion, professional training at Le Courdon Bleu, and experience working in the finest restaurants and hotels, Kathy set out to create the world’s best toffee. After years of experimentation, Recherché Toffee was born! Kathy uses only the finest, freshest natural ingredients—ones you can recognize and pronounce: butter, sugar, almonds, chocolate, and just a touch of honey. The result is the most exceptional, melt-in-your mouth toffee you’ve ever tasted. Kathy developed what so many confectionary connoisseurs have been seeking for so long, so the name is borrowed from French, meaning highly sought after, exquisite, and rare. After many taste tests, her friends and family implored her to share her toffee with the world. We partnered with Kathy to launch Recherché’s product, brand, and online storefront to the world.
Brand
The Recherché brand is one of elegance, grace, and desirability. Representing a premium product made with only the finest ingredients, and distributed in only the most premium hotel gift shops, the brand would have to rise to a level of sophistication required to succeed at the high end of the market. From early on, the founder was set on black and gold, which works really well for the brand’s objective, and stands out against the competition. We built upon the initial black and gold concept by exploring additional brand elements including voice, typography, and patterns.
Brand System
The brand system is the language the brand speaks, used to connect each touchpoint with customers to create a memorable and unified brand experience. The system is made up of elements, illustrated below, that are deployed across all brand communications.
Logos
The full-color logo uses a gold gradient, plated in a custom elegant typeface on Pure Black.
The single-color logo offers variations in black, gold, and white, which can be applied in a variety of circumstances.
The single-color logo offers variations in black, gold, and white, which can be applied in a variety of circumstances.
Brand Pattern
The brand pattern is a charcoal-on-black plaid, providing subtle adornment.
Color Palette
The color palette is simple, formal, and premium: black, two shades of gold, and white. Carrying through the product's natural color while exuding elegance, the palette commands attention as a new entrant at the high end of the market.
Typography
Recherché’s brand font is Eina, with Playfair as an alternate Display font. Eina was chosen for its modern simplicity, approachability, and sophistication. Playfair Display was chosen as Eina's black-tie formal companion, dressing up the system when it needs an extra bit of 'pop.'
Brand Tone & Promise
Recherché’s tone is confident, bold, authentic, and true. Its promise is a reminder of the origin story, and why the business exists: the founder spent the better part of her career searching for the high-quality toffee she remembered from her early years. She couldn't find it, so she created it, and perfected it. The product's promise is simple: it is the most exceptional, melt-in-your mouth toffee you’ve ever tasted. And the brand's promise stands lockstep beside it: decades of experience, the finest ingredients, and a whole lotta love create uncompromising quality.
Composition
A linear grid divides content sections, usually into halves or thirds, creating a simple and replicable system that can be deployed across media, including coupon cards, business cards, slides, ads, table tents, and more.
Photography & Art Direction
When you have a product that’s this good, the pressure’s on the photography team to do it justice. For the audience first experiencing the brand online, we’d need to show them what makes Recherché so great. They’d have to see the natural ingredients, and careful precision with which each batch is artfully crafted. That’s why our first photo shoots focused on getting raw, macro shots of the product in a natural environment.
Transparent Ingredients, Transparent Packaging
Whereas other brands hide behind ornate—and opaque—packaging, the Recherché team wanted consumers to know what they’re buying. Recherché uses only the finest, freshest natural ingredients—ones you can recognize and pronounce: butter, sugar, almonds, and chocolate. Quality and honesty are at the center of the brand’s promise, so selecting transparent packaging was the natural choice. The signature black and gold, with a little black bow provide identity to the packaging, and on the back a simple label clearly communicates what the consumer is buying, again with simplicity and grace.
Nutrition Label
The nutrition label plainly states what you’re getting, without any words your can’t pronounce. Finally, Recherché brand promise is printed on every package.
Online Store (Shopify)
For some lucky consumers, brand discovery happens in high-end hotels or at events, weddings, or bridal showers where Recherché is included in gift baskets. But for most consumers, discovery happens on platforms like Instagram. The Recherché online store, built on Shopify, allows people to place an order and ship it worldwide. In addition to offering its standard product assortment, Recherché plans to offer personalization, allowing customers to order their favorite toffee in packaging customized for special personal and corporate events.
