Interaction Design · Project 1 of 3 · Weeks 1–5
GD 2 Project 3: Chocolate Brand Packaging
Mission, mark, and material — a complete brand system
FORMAT
Individual
WEEKS
9–13
METHODS
Monoprinting · Frottage · Texture scanning · Logo development · Color system · Pattern design · Packaging design · Adobe Illustrator · Adobe Photoshop · Adobe InDesign · Style guide production · Iterative critique
TAGS
Design Education, Semiotics
Why this project
This project is the first lesson in package design, a 3D design The monoprints students produce in a dedicated workshop are design assets. Scanned at high resolution and integrated into the pattern system and packaging surfaces, they give the final digital work a material specificity that no stock library or AI tool can replicate. The hand is visible in the finished piece. That visibility is a position on authorship at a moment when the question of who made something — and how — is more contested than ever.
The mission connection, will begin in S2027, to the student's chosen human rights issue. A chocolate brand built on fair-trade labor practices poses a different design problem from one built on regenerative land use. The visual language, the color palette, the typographic voice, and the pattern system all have to serve a specific set of values, which are not generic premium-brand values, but the particular values of this company's particular commitment. Theoretically, student who research the fair trade chocolate market, or the regenerative agriculture movement, before designing produce work that is more specific, more persuasive, and more formally resolved than students who treat the mission as a tagline.
The audience — women 35 and older — is a studied constraint. This is a population with high design literacy, defined values, and purchasing habits shaped by experience. In general, they are not impressed by trends. This audience tend to be persuaded when every element of a brand signals the same set of values. Students who research this audience before designing for them make different decisions than students who design for themselves.
The Brief
PROJECT PROMPT
Design a complete brand identity and packaging system for a small-batch, mission-driven chocolate company. The brand must be built around a social or environmental mission connected to your chosen human rights issue from Project 1. A student who worked on labor rights designs a fair trade brand. A student who worked on environmental justice designs a brand built around regenerative farming. The mission is not marketing copy — it is the foundation of every design decision.
Your audience is women aged 35 and older: design-literate, value-driven, and persuaded by coherence rather than trend. Research this audience before you design for them.
You will create unique textures through monoprinting. These handcrafted marks serve as exclusive visual assets integrated into your pattern system and packaging. Since they can't be replicated by software or generated by a prompt, this adds value.
DELIVERABLE
8–10 monoprints created in workshop — scanned at 600 dpi minimum and submitted
Sketchbook showing logo and motif development — photographed and submitted
Logo mark and wordmark — Illustrator files (.ai)
Three packaging designs (front and back) — 300 dpi, print-ready
Repeating pattern — Illustrator file (.ai), seamless repeat incorporating monoprint textures
Style guide — InDesign file (.indd), minimum 8 pages, exported as PDF
Style guide must include: logo usage, color palette, typography, pattern usage, packaging system overview, one additional application example
Export all files labelled Lastname_Firstname_GD2_P3_[component].pdf
Print packaging mockups and style guide for critique
Self-assessment — see separate assignment sheet
What I've learned from running this
The chocolate project involves teasing chocolate, noting the complexities of chocolate. It also involves cresting a logo, pattern, and packaging that will speak to a particular audience, not of the student's age.
The mission connection has evolved across iterations of this project. Earlier versions of the course treated the chocolate brand as a purely commercial exercise — premium packaging, a sophisticated color palette, and target-audience research. It was a strong project but lacked a requirement for students to connect their design decisions to a set of values they had been researching all semester. This project has been modified for future courses to focus on the company mission, shifting the dialog from decoration to mean-making. It is hoped that adding the mission requirement will significantly change the work. Students who spend twelve weeks thinking about labor rights or environmental justice will bring that knowledge directly into their brand decisions. The color palette choices, the typographic voice, and the pattern system — all of these will become arguments and part of the visual language and visual culture of the mission rather than just preferences. This is a modification I am making intentionally and with anticipation, but I have not yet had the opportunity to observe in practice. I will update this reflection after the first semester it runs.
The audience — women 35 and older — consistently challenges students who have been designing primarily for themselves or an audience of their peers. The research requirement is necessary: students who do not understand this audience before designing for them produce work that feels generic or condescending.
