Kuki Suki
Product Development, Brand Naming, Brand Strategy, Branding & Identity, Packaging & Copywriting
Kuki Suki is one of the projects closest to my heart, mainly because I built this biz with my mom in mind. She was sick then with cancer, and needed lots of love and little joys through her days. I kept thinking about how important it is to make people feel loved, even on ordinary days. So I went on and baked my own version of a perfectly half-baked toasted-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside kuki that will make a person smile and happy dance on the first bite.
Around 9 months, 20+ recipe references, 40+ bags of flour, x blocks of butters, finally, the kukis were ready. 🍪
And then I went on to work on everything else from the gifting concept and biz strategy, branding & identity, packaging design and overall tone of the brand and copy for online marketing. I also had a lot of crazy (!) fun creative brainstorming sessions with my sisters for this biz while stuck in our home during the pandemic—around the dinner table or in the living room at 2am—so I would say this is a pandemic family project. 😁
I love a play on words that’s full of meaning yet easily rememberable. Kuki Suki felt just right when we discovered the wordplay. Kuki is tagalog for cookie, and suki is a term used here in the Philippines for someone who is a regular customer but also in Japanese it means love.
Love and spreading joy is what Kuki Suki is all about, so it was just perfect.
I wanted this core message to be translated into the brand quite obviously, so I knew the colors had to be bright and playful, yet refined and romantic. There’s a “surprise!” factor, but it’s not too loud, still genuine. To balance out the the vivid colors, I opted to handwrite imperfect pencil illustrations and incorporated some IRL, a lot of times floral/nature imagery into social media posts and the packaging––a little piece of the outside world we longed for at the peak of the pandemic, all stuck in our homes.
For every touchpoint, I wanted a visual treat that will make you feel instantly at ease when you see it.
I took these quick snaps of freshly baked kukis (of course, ate everything afterwards, my reward) and then created a very simple menu for Instagram on the day of the launch. I mean, how photogenic are these kukis? I’m getting hungry as I type this. It doesn’t help that it’s 12:32am in the morning.
The packaging I may have had maybe too much fun with, but feel really pleased with the turnout. It’s all very cute but the details are what I’m most in love with. I’ll spoil one for you. Notice how there are three “Surprise!” texts on the plastic bag seal? It’s meant to mimic the unison of many voices saying surpriiiiiise out loud to you on special occasions, or when friends or family hand you a gift. I wanted that special quiet moment of receiving a box of kukis to feel just as special.
As a little field (home) test, I printed samples of my packaging drafts, cut them out and tested them on different box options. And then I would hand them over to my sisters out of nowhere to see what kind of reaction they would have if they were to receive one at their door.
Eventually, we removed packaging that wasn’t necessary to avoid waste. If kuki orders are for personal consumption and not gifts for example, I don’t include a notecard, surprise sticker, or the got this as a gift? sticker anymore.
Again, just really tiny ways to be more earth friendly, but I know it counts.
Of course, working on social media posts is a whole new level of fun. Apart from this FAQ story highlight, check out this epic START-UP kdrama ending theory (honestly, more on this on a longer video SOON—I must share!) and this Binjin celebratory kuki promo when they announced they are dating in real life and not just in our dreams.
Oh my goodness, I can’t even begin to express how fun working on all of this was for me, and my sisters, who were always ready to jump in on my theories, joys and crazy ideas.
Working on this was almost effortless to me, which is quite rare for my personal branding projects. I still had many different ideas for it, going through three very different iterations of the overall direction but I felt very decisive on the kind of look and feel I wanted for the brand identity of Kuki Suki and got to the final identity within 2 weeks of experimenting.
It was amazing working on this, and the truth is, I haven’t even shared most of the concept to the world. More surprises to come with this one!
Check out Kuki Suki and order kukis here. ♡
I’d love to share more, but the oven’s beeping,
