Babycakes by Tine Wahl

ASSIGNMENT
This was a project for the whole semester. I had to choose any company I liked and rebrand their whole system including logo, advertising, applications, and interactive media (iPhone). There needed to be an underlying key insight into the brand that served as the basis for all of our design decisions. We wrote out a creative brief with a target audience, business goal, etc. We also needed to create a user journey that showed how a customer might stumble upon our brand and find our iPhone app/website/etc useful and keep coming back.

SCHOOL
School of Visual Arts
New York, NY

COURSE
Advertising, Interaction, Design, the Future

INSTRUCTOR
Wade Convay, Carla Echevarria

Approach

I chose Babycakes, a cupcake bakery in the Lower East Side of New York City. They specialize in healthy, vegan cupcakes and treats made from organic ingredients, no sugar, no bleached wheat flour, etc. When taking on this brand I decided to focus on removing the vegan stigma from its cakes (“vegan cakes taste weird”) and move their marketing towards health-conscious women who may be dieting or watch what they eat, but still have a raging sweet tooth.

I ended up making a huge array of things for the brand (logo, plates, napkins, coasters, magazine ad, traveling cupcake bike, two iPhone apps—create your own cupcake!, website including facebook and twitter). The emphasis on healthy ingredients was the basis for all of my design decisions, from the little leaves on the logo to the plates and choosing to have a cupcake bike rather than a truck.

I had never done such a thorough project before, and it was also my first foray into the wonderful world of iPhone apps. Everything I did had to link back to the user journey and serve a use for the customer that would hook them into the brand, even the plates and little napkins. The thing I took away the most was that everything should have an underlying concept and when in doubt (or designer’s block), go back to the key insight and moodboard. Also, I never thought I could churn out so many applications and ideas! My teachers just kept pushing me and introducing something new every week, I had to keep up or else. That was really helpful and kept me creative.

Sketches and Process

Solution

I wanted to convey a sweet and vintage feeling, but also bring out the fact that these are healthy all-natural cupcakes. I felt this was a good opportunity to use botanical illustrations that fit into the vintage theme but emphasize the healthy ingredients they use.

These plates have little facts that people might not know about baking. Instead of fattening butter and eggs, Babycakes uses substitutes such as applesauce and canola oil.

I thought a traveling cupcake bicycle made much more sense than a truck, to keep the healthy aspect of the brand in mind. Illustrations of the ingredients are used instead of pictures of each type of cupcake for the bike menu, again to emphasize the all-natural organic cupcakes. On the front side: “Follow me on Twitter! @BabycakesNYC”.

I made two iPhone applications. The first app is meant as a handy tool for users who like to bake. You can type in any baking ingredient in any quantity and instantly get back healthier substitutions in the equivalent quantity.

These are some shots of the second iPhone app “Cupcake Chef” where customers can create their own cupcakes and order them. It’s fun and interactive; you can use your finger to ice the cupcake, or physically shake your iPhone to sprinkle chocolate shavings on top.

Instead of having a normal stamp card that everyone loses, I decided to build it into the iPhone app. Select what kind of Babycakes you just ate, press Start and watch as the cupcake burns off your hips with the built-in pedometer! This tracks how many cupcakes you’ve burned and how far you’ve walked. When you’ve had 10 cupcakes or walked 20 miles, you get a free cupcake.

Tine Wahl’s Website