Small Title
A brand that tastes like a hug.
Brand identity, narrative universe, and social content system for a handcrafted brookie brand born between two sisters in a small kitchen.
Client
Year
Role
Brok (Personal brand / Founder - led project)
2024 - 2025
Brand Designer & Strategist (sole lead)
Scope
Brand strategy · Visual identity · Narrative universe · Packaging direction · Social content system
Deliverables
Brand book, logo system, color palette, typographic system, sticker/graphic library, Instagram content framework
The challenge
Brok started the way many craft food brands start: with a recipe that worked, a small following of curious clients, and no visual language to hold the story together.
The founders — two sisters — wanted to sell brookies (the brownie-cookie hybrid), but the real product was less obvious. What they actually sold was a moment: a small indulgence shared between people, the kind of everyday ritual that turns a regular Tuesday into something slightly more memorable.
The challenge wasn't "design a logo for a dessert brand."
The challenge was: how do you translate a feeling — warmth, closeness, the memory of a childhood kitchen — into a brand system that can survive outside of the kitchen it was born in?
How I thought about it
01
START WITH THE FEELING, NOT THE PRODUCT
Before touching any visual reference, I ran a discovery session with the founders around one question: "If Brok were a person walking into a room, what would it feel like before they even spoke?" The answer, repeated in different words, was consistent: a close friend, someone who shows up with something warm and small when you need it most. That phrase became the brand's center of gravity.
02
TRANSLATE THE FEELING INTO A STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK
I structured the brand using a modified Golden Circle to make sure the emotional truth had an operational backbone.
03
BUILD A NARRATIVE UNIVERSE, NOT JUST AN IDENTITY
One of my core beliefs as a designer: a visual identity dies quickly when it isn't tied to a story the brand can actually live inside.
WHY
Celebrate the joy of being together. Reframe desserts as a bond, a happy pause, a gift with intention.
HOW
Handcrafted products, no rules, and a brand voice that's honest, close, and playful with a mischievous edge.
WHAT
Handcrafted brookies, in evolving flavors.
The system
LOGOTYPE
The double-outline treatment gives the logo a slight sticker quality, nodding to the craft, homemade, almost DIY origin of the brand, while the geometric precision of the letterforms keeps it from looking childish.
A custom-drawn wordmark that reads "BROK" but conceals a bear face inside it. One mark, two readings, the literal brand name and the hidden character.
COLOR SYSTEM
#0C3148
PRIMARY
#FCF0D5
BACKGROUND
#679ABD
SECONDARY
#C11720
EMOTIONAL PEAK
TYPOGRAPHY
THE STICKER LIBRARY
Application
Social content system
For around six months I managed the brand's Instagram (@brok_forbro), which gave me the rare chance to pressure-test the identity in the wild rather than leaving it frozen in a brand book.
PRODUCT STORYTELLING
Hero photography of the brookies, always shot on cream or navy, with a sticker overlay.
UNIVERSE-BUILDING
Brok & Brenda moments, origin story beats, behind-the-kitchen content.
CONVERSATIONAL
Copy-led posts using the oso-play language to build a distinct voice in the feed.
What the project actually did
*
Built a complete, systematized brand foundation that the founders can hand to any future collaborator and maintain consistency without me in the room.
*
Designed a graphic system that scales — the modular sticker library means new products, flavors, or seasonal campaigns can be released without a new design cycle.
*
Managed the brand's social channel for ~6 months, growing the audience organically and validating the system in a real feed, not just inside a PDF.
*
Produced a brand that, in a market full of bakery logos that all look alike, stands out by refusing the category's visual defaults.
What I learned
Start with the feeling the product leaves behind, not the product itself. Brok isn't about brookies, it's about the small moment of warmth the brookie triggers.
Build a system, not an asset collection. A logo and a palette are not a brand. A brand is a set of rules that lets non-designers make reasonably good decisions when you're not around.
Don't over-sanitize craft brands. The temptation with small, homemade products is to clean them up until they look scalable. That's how you lose the soul.
Next project
CONNECT.
LET'S
Great brands start with
a conversation.
Made with friction / Designed to feel