The aesthetic that I will base my project on is Wabi-Sabi—a natural and minimalistic philosophy that captures the essence of what I want to communicate. For this project, I want to design packaging for a luxury chocolate brand that embodies authenticity, imperfection, and deep respect for nature.
My inspiration for this project came from an experience I had this past summer while working on a cacao plantation in the south of Mexico. I was very moved by the incredible work that had been done at the plantation, as well as their commitment to social and environmental sustainability. The plantation not only provided great living conditions for its workers but also had a meaningful impact on the surrounding community from renovating the local school, building parks, and improving infrastructure. Moreover, their polyculture farming techniques and specialized irrigation systems gave optimal resource efficiency, making them pioneers in sustainable cacao production. They had even ventured into agritourism, constructing stunning, sustainable architecture for the accommodations from bamboo, seamlessly blending with the natural environment.
This experience inspired me to collaborate with them and develop a luxury chocolate brand that mirrors the plantation’s values. The chocolate produced here follows a unique and specialized process, exceeding even the world’s most luxury chocolates. This chocolate is crafted through a vertically integrated ‘earth-to-bar’ process, ensuring great attention to quality from harvest to store. Each step is personalized according to the season’s cacao harvest, much like fine wine production, making every bar a truly unique, artisanal creation.
Given this level of craftsmanship behind this chocolate, making a packaging that resembles the thousands of chocolate bars that you see at the supermarket or at specialty stores didn’t seem right. Instead, I wanted to create something that embodies the virtues of the plantation, the craftsmanship of the chocolate, and the philosophy of Wabi-Sabi.
Wabi-Sabi is a Japanese aesthetic philosophy that embraces imperfection, transience, and the beauty of nature’s simplicity. It celebrates raw, organic materials, asymmetry, and the passage of time—values that align well with the story of this chocolate and its origins. The cacao plantation itself is a testament to this philosophy, with its respect for nature, handcrafted approach, and integration of sustainable practices.
For the packaging, I want to reflect these ideals in several key ways:
- Zero-Waste Design: Using upcycled materials from the chocolate-making process to minimize environmental impact.
- Community-Centric Production: Incorporating local artisans to craft packaging that not only looks beautiful but also creates jobs and preserves traditional craftsmanship.
- Nature-Inspired Aesthetics: Designing the packaging in a way that draws inspiration from the mesmerizing shape of the cacao pod, embracing its natural irregularities and textures, much like Wabi-Sabi embraces the beauty of imperfection.
For this project I want to focus on the design of the packaging and the materials used. For which I plan to upcycled materials from the cacao pod which after the harvest of the cacao is considered waste, and the cacao shells that are separated from cacao nibs during the winnowing process of production.
Below I will share some pictures of the cacao plantation that I believe resemble the Wabi Sabi aesthetic:
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Great post I am excited to see the final product. The level of detail and inspiration you drew from made it very apparent this is a personally fulfilling project. The material sourcing seems quite niche, do you know of a supplier that you can get this recycled cacao material from? and will you need any processing done to the raw recycled material before you can work with it?