Brand Identity & Packaging Design
La Petite — Handmade Bakery
La Petite is a handmade French-inspired bakery that needed a visual identity as warm and considered as its products. The goal was to build a brand that felt simultaneously nostalgic and fresh — evoking the charm of a neighbourhood pâtisserie while performing beautifully on social media and retail shelves.
The brand had to stretch across a wide range of touchpoints: product boxes, coffee cups, sticker sheets, carry bags, menus, and an Instagram presence — all while feeling cohesive and handcrafted.
“We believe that desserts are more than just food. They are a pause in the middle of the day. A gift to yourself.”
02 — The Challenge
Comfort without cliché
The central design problem was avoiding the trap of “cute but forgettable.” Many bakery brands lean too heavily on generic pastels and stock illustration styles. La Petite needed to feel genuinely handcrafted — as if the same person who iced the cakes also drew the logo.
Key constraints:
- Must work across physical print and digital formats
- Packaging needed to carry full legal information (ingredients, allergens, nutrition) without losing its personality
- The brand needed three distinct flavour variants (Strawberry, Blueberry, Lemon) that feel related but differentiated
- Social media templates needed to be reusable without looking templated
03 — Brand Strategy & Direction
Before any visual decisions were made, the brand’s emotional territory was defined. La Petite sits at the intersection of three qualities:
- Comfort — familiar flavours, gentle textures, timeless recipes
- Care — handmade, considered, nothing excessive
- Joy — small pleasures, ribbon bows, a cake that makes you smile before you even taste it
This emotional brief drove every decision — from the looping script wordmark to the thin line illustrations that look like someone drew them on a napkin with love.
04 — Logo & Identity
The heart-petal mark
The logomark is built from four overlapping heart shapes arranged into a flower — referencing both the handmade nature of the product and the care behind every item. It sits above the script wordmark “La petite” with “handmade bakery” set in spaced capitals below.
The wordmark uses a flowing cursive script that feels personal without being illegible — readable at large display sizes and still recognisable when reduced to a cup sleeve stamp.
Sub-sections to show here:
- Primary logo (pink on cream)
- Reversed logo (white on pink)
- Icon only (for Instagram profile, favicon)
- Logo on packaging context
05 — Colour Palette
Pastels pulled from the product shelf
Every colour in the palette references something real in the bakery’s range. Nothing was chosen arbitrarily — the palette was built by looking at the products themselves and distilling their most distinctive hues.
Colours to document:
- Blush Pink
#F9A8D4— primary brand colour, strawberry reference - Sky Blue
#BFDBFE— Blueberry variant, secondary packaging - Lemon
#FEF08A— Lemon variant, warmth and brightness - Cream
#F5F0E0— primary background across all packaging - Chocolate
#6B2D4E— body text, deep accent on labels
06 — Typography
Three voices, one personality
The type system uses three distinct styles that work together to give the brand range — from the logo down to the nutritional panel.
- Script / Wordmark — the cursive La Petite logotype, used only for the logo and primary brand titles
- Handwritten style — used for product names (Strawberry cake, Blueberry cake), in-store signage, and marketing copy. Casual, warm, slightly imperfect on purpose
- Monospace — used exclusively for ingredient lists, allergen notices, storage instructions, and nutrition tables. Gives technical information a distinct voice that doesn’t fight the brand’s warmth
07 — Illustration System
A world drawn with one line
The illustration library is the heartbeat of the brand. Every motif — cupcakes, heart-shaped cakes, cookies, oven mitts, ribbon bows, swirling garnishes, spoons — is drawn in a single consistent line weight with rounded caps. They appear across every touchpoint, always in brand pink on light backgrounds.
The bow motif deserves special mention. It functions as a recurring connector device throughout the system — framing logo lockups, decorating packaging corners, accenting cup designs, and tying the whole visual language together literally and figuratively.
The full illustration set was also packaged as a branded sticker sheet — both a retail product and a built-in marketing insert.
08 — Packaging System
Heading: Every box feels like a gift
Body: Six packaging formats were designed, all sharing the same visual DNA — vertical stripes, line illustrations, handwritten product names, and monospace information panels. Each flavour variant is colour-coded using the pastel palette, making the range immediately readable on a shelf.
Formats to document individually:
- Gable carry box — Strawberry (pink stripe), Blueberry (blue stripe), Lemon (yellow diamond) variants. Carries product name, brand story copy, logo, and full ingredient/nutrition panel.
- Cupcake flip box — Square format. “Soft and tender cupcake” — stripe and diamond pattern variants.
- Open paper cup — “Drink me” repeat text with illustration medallion. La Petite logo and handmade bakery descriptor.
- Lidded to-go cup — Same sleeve design with pink lid option and cream lid option.
- Pink carry bag — Solid brand pink with white logo stamp. Clean, minimal.
- Menu / card — Stripe border, full type system, product listings.
09 — Social Media & Digital
Heading: A feed that looks like a shop window
Body: The Instagram presence was designed as a deliberate grid — alternating vivid pink graphic tiles with cream-background photography frames. The effect when scrolling is a patchwork quilt of warmth and brand colour.
What to document:
- Grid layout — alternating pink graphic posts with cream photo posts in a 3-column checkerboard rhythm
- Graphic post templates — “Cake for you”, “Strawberry cake — Your perfect starts here”, “The art of the cakes”, “We are open”, “Bestseller cupcake”
- Highlight covers — six covers using the two-tone circle system: cookies, cupcakes, “you”, heart cake, apron, “new”
- Profile mockup — showing the full grid in context on an iPhone screen
10 — Brand in Context
Heading: The system working in the world
Body: Show the brand applied across real-world scenarios — the packaging on a café table, cups being filled at an espresso machine, boxes scattered across a surface, the Instagram profile being scrolled on a phone.
This section should be primarily visual with minimal copy. Let the mockups speak.
Suggested image order:
- Three cake boxes on a café table (Strawberry, Blueberry, Lemon)
- Open cups with latte art (coffee shop context)
- To-go cups with pink lids, scattered
- Cupcake boxes scattered from above
- Instagram profile mockup on phone
11 — Closing / Reflection
Heading: What this project taught me (or: What makes it work)
Option A — Personal reflection (if this is a portfolio piece): La Petite was an exercise in restraint. The temptation with a brand this playful is to keep adding — more colours, more illustrations, more decorative detail. The real work was knowing what to leave out. The line illustrations work because they’re sparse. The palette works because it’s anchored in cream and only accented with colour. The type works because each voice has a clear job and stays in its lane.
Option B — Summary statement (if client-facing or neutral): La Petite demonstrates that a cohesive brand system doesn’t require complexity — it requires clarity. A single illustration style, a disciplined colour palette, and a three-voice type system are enough to carry a brand from a logo lockup to a six-format packaging range to a curated social media presence.