#Styleguide #Branding #ProductThinking #SmallBusiness #Packaging
From Handmade to Digitally-Ready: Unifying Identity, UI, and Product Vision for Lavras – Chocolates Artesanais
Lavras – Chocolates Artesanais began with Letícia, who handcrafted her chocolates and sold them door to door in the small town of Mucugê — a remote gem in the heart of Brazil’s Chapada Diamantina, Bahia. What started as a one-woman operation quickly became a local favorite. With the arrival of a business partner, Lavras grew into a structured artisanal brand, scaling production while preserving its homemade soul.
Today, their small-batch creations reach customers across Brazil. But with growth came friction. The visual identity — heartfelt but inconsistent — couldn't keep pace. Each new product meant starting from scratch. There was no visual logic connecting packaging, promotions, or digital materials.
Initially, the project was framed as a branding revamp. But as I dug deeper into their workflow, ambitions, and bottlenecks, it became clear that they needed more than aesthetics. I proposed building a scalable visual and digital framework — one that would unify the brand and lay the groundwork for future initiatives like e-commerce, seasonal campaigns, and digital storytelling.
What began as a design refresh evolved into a strategic foundation connecting graphic design, UI, and product thinking — aligning Lavras’ visual voice with its growing business vision.
Purpose
Redesign Lavras’ identity while building a scalable design system that supports growth across packaging, digital presence, and future product initiatives — without compromising the brand’s artisanal soul.
The Challenge
Lavras’ charm was never the problem — the brand had heart, flavor, and a compelling origin story. But its first impression told a different story.
The original logo wasn’t designed to express the brand’s values, personality, or regional roots. It was a generic, go-to-market placeholder: stacked serif text, no concept, no distinction. It did the job — barely — but it didn’t reflect what made Lavras special.
And while the chocolates themselves were carefully crafted, the same couldn’t be said for their visual presence. There was no cohesive system — just a patchwork of well-intentioned design decisions made on the fly. Each new product, tag, or social post was designed from scratch. Internally, this slowed things down. Externally, it created a disjointed and forgettable brand experience.
As the company prepared to scale production and sell beyond local markets, the gaps became clearer:
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A generic, non-distinctive logo with no concept or visual storytelling.
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Lack of visual identity system, making every new design a one-off effort.
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Visual inconsistency across channels, from packaging to social media.
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No readiness for digital products like e-commerce or online catalogues.
This wasn’t a matter of tightening bolts. It was a call to build a solid, scalable visual and digital foundation — one that could grow with the business and resonate with its customers.
While the early logo and packaging lacked conceptual grounding, the moodboard guided us toward a richer visual language rooted in Lavras’ story — artisanal, regional, and refined. It helped transform abstract values into design principles.
Approach & Process
My goal wasn’t just to design a prettier brand — it was to design a smarter system.
Lavras didn’t need a new logo. It needed a cohesive identity system, rooted in its story and capable of scaling across physical and digital touchpoints. This meant shifting from one-off graphic solutions to a modular design strategy that could support business growth — from local store shelves to future e-commerce.
I broke the project into three interdependent fronts:
1. A Distinctive and Concept-Driven Visual Identity
We replaced the placeholder logo with a concept-rich mark that balances sophistication with regional symbolism. The new symbol combines a bateia — the traditional tool used to mine diamonds in the Chapada Diamantina — with a stylized cacao fruit, turning the brand’s name and origin into visual form.
We translated Lavras’ sensorial and regional richness into a system rooted in craft, territory, and elegance.
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Create a distinctive and memorable brand system that reflects Lavras’ artisanal roots and Bahia heritage.
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Establish logo, typography, color palette, iconography, and print collateral that feels both premium and hand-crafted.
Logo System Evolution
From a placeholder logo to a modular identity built for storytelling and recognition
Graphic System & Color Palette
Evokes cocoa, clay, local soil, and natural elegance.
We crafted a visual toolkit inspired by local history — the bateia, the cocoa, the land — to create continuity across every touchpoint.
Typography in Context
Typography bridges tradition and function.
A typographic voice that reflects heritage and function — elegant in print, optimized for digital.
2. A Packaging System Ready to Grow
A scalable layout system that supports product variety without losing brand coherence. Each flavor tells a story — unified by a layout system designed to scale.
Each product now fits into a modular label system that allows for:
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Flavor variations through color and text changes
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Visual consistency across SKUs without repetition
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Faster production and reduced reliance on redesigns for every product
We designed:
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Packaging for individual chocolates using a fixed layout structure
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A special tasting kit with gift-oriented appeal
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A scalable system for future product lines or seasonal editions
3. A Digital-Ready Brand Foundation
Lavras’ new identity wasn’t limited to print — we designed a system that could transition seamlessly into web and digital product interfaces.
Deliverables included:
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UI components for a future e-commerce site: product cards, buttons, color usage, and typography hierarchy
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Style recommendations for mobile-friendly storytelling and navigation
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Asset library and design tokens ready to be implemented in a design system
The system respects the tactile, sensorial essence of Lavras while ensuring usability, readability, and visual consistency across screens.
Designed a UI foundation aligned with Lavras’ identity to support digital growth and product storytelling. We prototyped a UI aligned with the brand’s visual DNA — preparing Lavras for its digital evolution.
A unified system across print, packaging, and digital — designed to scale with soul. A flexible brand system across touchpoints — from shelf to screen
Strategic Outcome
What was once a visually fragmented brand is now a cohesive, scalable experience — grounded in its origin, optimized for production, and prepared for digital growth.
This was more than a logo redesign. It was a product design strategy dressed as visual branding.
Results & Impact
1. Brand Recognition & Differentiation
The new identity gave Lavras a unique and memorable visual presence. From the symbolic icon to the cohesive packaging system, the brand now stands out — both on the shelf and online — with authenticity and elegance.
“Now it really looks like the chocolate we make.”
Letícia - Founder
2. Operational Efficiency
Design assets were delivered as a modular system that allowed the internal team to:
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Produce new labels faster and with less dependency on external design
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Replicate visual standards across new products and formats
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Reduce inconsistency and last-minute design improvisation
3. Digital Readiness
The identity system was built to support Lavras' digital future. Even before launching an e-commerce platform, they already had:
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Interface components for site and product listings
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Scalable visual assets for campaigns, landing pages, and social
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A design system that connects print and screen without visual dissonance
4. Strategic Alignment
What started as a logo redesign turned into a foundational design strategy. The project aligned visual communication with Lavras’ core values: craftsmanship, origin, and premium quality. It also set the stage for future growth in channels like:
Online subscription programs
Seasonal launches
Collaborations and B2B partnerships
Reflections & Takeaways
This project wasn’t just about solving a branding problem — it was about designing with foresight.
Here’s what I learned (and would absolutely apply again):
1. Brand and Product Design Shouldn’t Be Separated
What started as a visual identity project quickly revealed deeper structural needs — packaging consistency, digital readiness, internal autonomy. Thinking like a product designer (not just a brand designer) allowed me to anticipate future frictions and solve for scale, not just style.
Designing a system is always more valuable than delivering isolated assets.
2. Respecting the Soul of a Brand Makes It Stronger
Lavras had something most brands dream of: an authentic story and deep emotional roots. My job wasn’t to reinvent it — it was to translate it visually without diluting its essence. Every decision, from the typography to the texture, was meant to amplify that soul, not overshadow it.
3. Scalability Doesn’t Mean Uniformity
Building a visual system doesn’t mean everything has to look the same. It means everything should speak the same language — even when telling different stories. Lavras now has the structure to expand SKUs, digital channels, and seasonal campaigns while staying unmistakably itself.
4. Start Small, Think Big
The original scope was “just a logo.” But by asking the right questions early, I was able to turn that into a strategic platform — a foundation that will support future initiatives like:
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Subscription-based experiences
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Gift kits and seasonal boxes
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A full e-commerce ecosystem
On Interface Thinking Beyond Screens
One of the key reflections from this project was realizing how limiting it is to think of UI strictly as digital layouts.
The identity system built for Lavras is interface design — not just for screens, but for labels, packaging, menus, and every point of contact where users interact with the brand.
Typography becomes navigation. Texture becomes context. Color becomes hierarchy. Whether in a tasting kit or on an Instagram story, the brand behaves like an interface — guiding perception and shaping experience.
This project reminded me that user interface is about behavior and clarity — regardless of medium.