A 5300 years old Mesoamerican bitter drink of the Mayo-Chinchipe, became the sweet drink of European aristocracy during the 1500s. ‘Xocolati’ or ‘Chocolate’, took its solid form only during the industrial revolution in the 1800s and later went on to become the most loved food world over! A century and a half later, India still knew mass produced versions like Cadbury’s & Hershey’s. L’inouï wanted to change this, and I helped design the brand.
ClientL'inouïScopeIdentity Design.TeamSagar Ghoting, Manoj Kurian Kallupurackal.Duration8 Weeks.
The Project
A brain child of Anusha Chowdaiah, L’inouï was born in 2014 with the vision to bring handcrafted chocolates to the Indian audiences prepared in the authentic European way. Inspired by Anusha’s own experience during her visit to Belgium after her graduation, where she had her first hot chocolate in a local chocolaterie there.
Given it was her baby, we wanted to make the brand as close to Anusha’s thoughts as possible. Hence we crafted a brand story that was built upon why she wanted to do this in the first place. The project was to be launched in Bangalore and we were tasked with doing the entire brand identity including the store design which you can see here.
The Brand Story
A girl, L’inouï is born to an able, well travelled, mixed race couple; an Indian father and a Belgian mother. Both lovers of Belgian chocolate, they met in a chocolaterie in Bruges, where their relationship sparked! Aware that not many Indians really ‘know’ chocolate, L'inouï's parents wished they could share their experience of chocolate with the rest of India, but for various reasons were not able to. It was their hope, that L’inouï would help realise their dream. Fortunately, L’inouï is growing up to want the same! As soon as L’inouï was old enough, her parents sent her to Belgium to learn the art of chocolate making. Today, L’inouï is back after having learnt the secrets and is now armed with a purpose!
The Purpose
L'inouï exists to make chocolate even more lovable!
Photo by Aliona Gumeniuk on Unsplash.
Brand Definition
Quality chocolate from a European source.
L'inouï procures its raw materials from Europe making it the only Indian chocolaterie that could then be known as an authentic source for European chocolate.
Cheerful. Confident. Friendly.
Based on the nature of the product and the vision for the service, we identified 3 personality traits that would lead the brand in the desired direction.
Attractive. Passionate. Creative.
To support the brand personality, we wanted to also put in place some dials in the service that we could turn in order to induce a sense of confidence in the customer.
Chocolate, in ways never experienced before!
One main lever that could enhance the dials of Feel was the manner in which the service is delivered. This was the lever we all agreed was feasible and could support in bringing the purpose to life.
Appealing. Surprising. Delicious.
Based on the brand purpose and its supporting values that we had articulated we ultimately wanted the brand to deliver a particular kind of experience that would be desirable as well as memorable.
The Final Visual Representations
The Visual Identity Guidelines
Simply rollover an image to stop it from sliding. Or if you are on mobile, just tap on the image to open it in a lightbox.
The Final Packaging
My Role
In this particular project I was involved end-to-end, from the initial audit and vision setting to the final launch of the store. I developed the brand strategy, the story, the symbol, the visual language, including the overall identity. I also developed the tone of voice, set guard rails for use of language, mood and context specific usage of words. I developed the
launch strategy for the brand, and also developed the text based launch campaign comprising of billboards. I designed the experience delivery approach for the launch event which included delivery mechanics, launch collateral design as well as the approach and text for the host, amongst other things.
A Glimpse Of The Process
Simply rollover an image to stop it from sliding. Or if you are on mobile, just tap on the image to open it in a lightbox.
Some of the options we developed during the initial discovery.
The preferred approach
We made modifications to the typeface to make it visually compact, and also own it.
The final registered trademark.