Manual’s redesign for San Francisco’s Recchiuti Confections is a perfect blend of low-key design elements and unique details that keep the eyes engaged. The highlight is the running theme of cool alternating typography that’s as dynamic as the varying chocolates in their well-designed boxes. Some letters look relaxed and unassuming, while the stems and tails of other characters reach out across the box. It adds a lively, animated feel to the packaging, setting the customer up for even more surprise when they get to the real treat inside.
Recchiuti Confections is a San Francisco-based gourmet chocolatier that creates chocolates with unique flavour combinations. Using traditional European techniques, with locally sourced ingredients from Northern Californian farms and markets, Recchiuti’s chocolates have earned a loyal customer base and several accolades.
Their sweet treats have won numerous accolades, and have amassed a huge fanbase of loyal customers, appealing to adventurous chocolate lovers and traditionalists alike—those who will appreciate creative riffs on a classic chocolate selection.
After 25 years, Recchiuti’s brand identity and packaging needed an update to not only appeal to a modern discerning customer, but to better convey the unique personality of the company and their products. Our goal was to reimagine Recchiuti through a strategic, visual, and experiential overhaul—ensuring we reunited them with the playful and creative spirit of the brand.
Core to this new rebrand is the concept of ‘sublime balance’ – a quality that came up several times in our interviews with customers. ‘Sublime balance’ refers to Recchiuti’s skill at creating artful flavour pairings, and its ability to find the sweet spot between Sweet+Tart, Comfort+Discovery, Friendly+Fancy, Art+Science, Elevated+Whimsical.
Founder Michael Recchiuti is not only an obsessive chocolatier, he’s also a curious musician who enjoys playfully experimenting with electronic music, percussion, and contemporary jazz in a music room at the Recchiuti facility.
We sought to bring his unique character into the brand expression and to let the world know that this brand is as much about creativity as it is about crafting fine confections.
We imbued the new logo and typographic visual identity with a musical sensibility. The unusual rising and falling, expanding and contracting letterforms dance like music notes on a sheet.
For the comprehensive packaging system, we created a family of boxes, bars and tubes that convey the diversity of sweet treats on offer. The packaging is premium, considered, and strikes a balance between minimalism and warmth. In other words, each item feels as if it were a gift – which is exactly what you want to feel when receiving or giving chocolates. High- quality paper substrates, rigid structural integrity and diamond bevel foil embossing enhance the luxe tactility.
While kept largely monotone, pops of colour can be seen across the packaging, serving as a subtle nod to the Recchiuti’s former color palette, and often relating to the flavours within. For example, the S’mores Kit features a soft-roasted gradient reminiscent of toasted marshmallows. Similarly, Key Lime Pears feature a zingy green sticker adorned with the brand’s monogram – an ‘R’ on an abstract balancing board.
Much like the chocolatier’s creations, the visual identity strikes a balance between contemporary techniques and traditional craft. Honouring Recchiuti’s hands-on small batch production, we introduced hand-illustrated linework elements that celebrate the natural ingredients and flavour combinations, and connect to the gestural decoration on the chocolates – the ‘art’. These contrast well with the highly-controlled, stylised studio photography, which speaks to the science and dedication that goes into flavour extraction – the technical skill. We worked with photographer Maren Caruso to coordinate the sculptural ingredient still life images, which equally fascinate and tantalise the tastebuds.
This is a visual identity where the sum of its parts work harmoniously to provide the chocolatier with an elevated look and feel that speaks to its spirit. It is both crafted and premium, modern and inviting, minimal and bright, artistically expressive and technically skillful. In short—sublimely balanced.
