Candlelight Confections
Establishing a brand image, packaging, and website for a startup bakery.
There’s nothing like the taste of a homemade pastry or piece of delicious cake, but Candlelight Confections takes it to the next level. When Rachel Peoples, a stay-at-home mom from Muscle Shoals, Alabama approached me about essentially starting a business from the ground up, I was eager to help!
And once I indulged in the delectable macarons she makes, I was sold. I knew she needed a brand that told her story and would sell her baked goods to customers the same way that trying one of her French macarons or cupcakes sold me.
Primary Logo Mark
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The Challenge
Rachel is a stay at home mother of three little ones, and initially Candlelight Confections was her attempt to deal with the craziness of life through baking. What started as a hobby morphed quickly into a blossoming business with people scrambling for her gourmet cakes, French macarons, and unique cupcake combinations. She approached me with a need for a quick logo as orders for her delicacies began to pour in.
I was quickly able to walk her through the need for a much larger brand, rather than just throwing together a quick logo or icon for her business. I saw the potential in Rachel’s creativity and skill from the start, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before she needed much more than simply a logo.
“I absolutely love every single thing that Nathan has done for us. The brand is perfect and the accompanying assets all compliment the new brand in a beautiful way!”
Rachel Peoples
Owner
What We Did
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Brand Identity
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Research & Strategy
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Web Design & Development
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Print & Packaging
Branding
Rachel needed something that was both simple and sophisticated, raw and yet refined. Though the obvious brand image would be a cupcake or macaron icon or illustration, I wanted the brand mark to make sense long term. To be more than just a logo – to be expandable. Timeless.
Combining a rough font like Wicked Grit with the more elegant font, Minion Variable Concept was where I started. And in place of a cheesy desert icon, I thought the initials C/C really held their own and presented a nice brand concept.
Product Packaging
The challenge of the product packaging was not only in the design; it was also in the concept of the packaging for long distance shipping as well. Shipping and handling fragile macarons and cupcakes was all new to Rachel, and with that in mind I researched the best packaging methods for delivery of delicate baked goods.
The design and composition of the packaging also fell in line with the brand assets that I had already developed and presented the pastries in a graceful and enticing way. The boxes and wraps were designed to showcase the brand flawlessly, but also keep a distinction in color and style between cakes, cupcakes, and macarons.
Website Presence
Website Design
Candlelight Confections expanded even more rapidly than I had anticipated, and with that growth a full-fledged e-commerce website was needed. I wanted to design and build something that showcased that small-time, bakery feel while also being complex enough to handle orders from all over the country.
The result is a warm-feeling, marketing driven site that catches the user's attention and is super easy to navigate. The site is now in development and should be launched soon helping Rachel carry out orders of her delicious baked goods to customers all over the world!
