The rigor of adulthood can make wonder feel more than a little inaccessible. Duty, responsibility, and the endless “shoulds” of everyday life make it easy to long for the simpler times of childhood, where the world felt huge and wild. But who says that has to be over? One of the best things about creatives is how tapped in they are to that inner child instinct, reminding us that imagination and play are states of mind that don’t ever have to be too far away.
We love The Truffle Man’s building block-inspired packaging for inviting chocolate lovers to do what so many of us were repeatedly instructed not to as kids: play with our food. The various pieces of this simple but ingenious design can be stacked, organized, and lined up in all different kinds of imaginative formations. These clever boxes obviously make eating the chocolate inside more fun, but why recycle them after they’re empty? This smart, eco-conscious packaging is not just a great desk toy, but a prompt to rethink the role boxes play in our everyday lives. If a cat can have more fun with a box than the toy that came in it, why can’t the rest of us?
For over 20 years the Truffle Man delighted people of SF with his chocolate truffles. Obsessed with geometry, engineering, magic, he created displays, Utensils, machinery, costumes, —an entire magical world. This packaging solution chocolate “treasures” is inspired by the “world of the Truffle Man”. Interplay between the three different sizes or individual boxes creates endless iterations of structures and patterns.
The boxes offer new display building opportunities, and invite buyers to play, build, and to keep the boxes to hold all new treasures.
The client was growing from a one-man operation into a full-scale manufacturer of chocolate-based treats, seeking to reach new audiences, in different venues. Dispensaries, and shops and delivery services can now stock a product that was perviously only available directly from the Truffle Man’s hand. Our studio was tasked with creating a brand and packaging system that could build upon a legendary story—keeping the magic and otherworldliness, while meeting regulations and being a viable commercial product.
Truffle Man is an artist, inventor, and craftsman. When it came to design legitimate packaging, this existing “world of the Truffle Man” was the inspiration for something fun and extraordinary but also clean, clear and branded. No package need sit lifeless on a shelf. The interplay between the three different sizes or even each individual box creates endless iterations of structures and patterns.
