The same delicious flavor of Cal Poly Chocolate isn’t going anywhere, but the new look of the chocolate is getting a face lift. A team of graphic communication students teamed up to create the chocolate’s new logos, and today is the launch of the new product.
“We are competing in an annual product design and printing competition sponsored by the Flexographic Technical Association. This year’s theme for the competition was ‘Campus Market.’” Audrey Van Camp, graphic communications junior who was part of the re-design team said. “We were instructed to redesign and repackage a maximum of four products that would be found in a campus market.”
The Flexographic Technical Association is a technical society in the flexographic printing and in-line converting industry which has teamed up with the Phoenix Challenge Foundation to make this competition happen.
The competition gives the students involved something to look forward to, but also gives Cal Poly Chocolates an updated new look. Cal Poly Chocolates is the only university-based chocolate production course in the country. The chocolates produces are both organic, and fair trade certified.
“We ended up starting a relationship with Anna Nakayama and Simon Zhao, the student managers of Cal Poly Chocolates, when they approached a graphics teacher because they wanted to redesign the CP Chocolates logo.” Van Camp said. “The teacher they approached happened to be our Phoenix Challenge advisor and we proposed redesigning their logo and packaging as part of our competition.
The team of graphic communication students have been working with the student managers since December and are publicly releasing of the new branding and packaging today.
“We have wanted to redesign the packaging for a long time because it hasn’t changed since Cal Poly Chocolates first started 10 years ago.” Anna Nakayama, Cal Poly Chocolates student manager said. “ We also wanted to change the labels to increase efficiency. All of our products are hand wrapped and packaging is our biggest labor cost so the new labels are designed to be easier and faster to wrap. We are very happy with the design and couldn’t have asked for anything more.”
The students that work at Cal Poly Chocolate take pride in their work.
“Cal Poly Chocolate is a completely student made product, from start to finish. It’s cool to say that we really are learning by doing as it is all students that produce these products.” Kaela Soohoo, graphic communications YEAR who was also part of the re-design team said. “While GrC was completely in charge of packaging, from design to print and display, FSC was in charge of the production of making the finished chocolate products.”
The re-branding team of graphic communication students, under the Phoenix Challenge Foundation work as a consulting group for Cal Poly Chocolates.
“They in a sense ‘hired’ us to redesign their packaging. In that type of relationship, we strove to give them exactly what they wanted, and were in addition able to produce a product that is within the parameters of our competition.” Van Camp said. “We had regular meetings with Simon and Anna and would present materials, colors, design, etc. to them and they would make the final decision.”
The team sent out surveys to Cal Poly students and faculty to research market data. Combining the data received with the vision and expertise of the Cal Poly Chocolates managers, the end result was 9 new packaging lines for the company.
“We wanted to make Cal Poly Chocolates have more of a brand identity, and look more professional.” Soohoo said. “We felt that the old packaging didn’t give us that chocolatey feeling, so we wanted to add that and make it more fun and accessible for students on their way to class but also nice enough to be given as a gift.”
It has been years since the last labels were created for the Cal Poly Chocolates line.
“Students spend so much time producing and packaging the chocolates so we wanted them to be excited to see them in store and we attempted to create a design that stood out and would be noticed on the shelf.” Van camp said.
The team will be passing out free samples during UU hour at Campus Market. Other locations on campus that carry Cal Poly Chocolates will have the new packaging once they run out of their current inventory.
Other students on the Phoenix Challenge team are: Chris Hernandez, Kendra Jaqua and Eli McNutt. The team has been advised by graphic communication professor Malcolm Keif. The team presents their rebranding and project March 17 in San Antonio, Texas.