The Natural World of Peru Inspired Magia Piura's Packaging

Inspired by the nature of Peru, Magia Piura is known throughout Peru for their delectable cacao treats from chocolate truffles to beer. Now, they’ve added a new collection of goodies, chocolate leaves, available in both milk and dark.

“I got involved with this brand four years ago when I first met Ivan, the owner and founder of Magia Piura,” says designer Alejandro Gavancho. “I designed the branding and packaging for his first product, a chocolate bar. After that, I designed additional packaging for cacao derivatives.”

Each time, Ivan was satisfied with the design work, and the products grew in popularity throughout the chocolate industry in Peru. So, the duo continued to collaborate and created a partnership that gave Gavancho the flexibility and trust to run with his crazy and unique graphics solutions.

For their latest project, the goal was to keep the mysticism of the brand he had created for products in the past while introducing a new set of visuals to expand.

"I started the project with two things the client supplied, the product or leaf chocolate bar and the type of presentation, the doypack, a sealed plastic bag that is designed to stand upright," states Gavancho.  

Excited to get started, Gavancho knew he had to produce packaging that would be striking and stand out from the competition, so he opted to create two color palettes with differing elements for the milk and dark chocolate.

"I decided to include a softer pastel color for the milk one, with pink and sky blue as a principal color, and for the dark chocolate packaging, a strong color palette with red, blue and purple as the main colors," shares Gavancho.

For the different elements, he included aspects of the cacao trees and the native fruits that give the cacao its flavors, not by additives, but from the aromas and notes surrounding the tree during its growth.  Additionally, it was important for Ivan that his packaging reflect nature and the farmers he works with directly to obtain his cacao. 

"I was inspired by everything in nature – flowers, vegetation, animals," he says. "Basically, anything that you can find in Piura, Peru and I mashed it all together in colors, shapes and images to evoke the place of origin."

The greatest challenge when creating the packaging was the composition of the collage. Between narrowing down the right color palette and the abstract brush strokes that took nearly 100 attempts until he was satisfied, the finished product required precision and time.

It's no wonder the greatest reward was to see the finished product and to hear compliments from the client, workmates, friends and even strangers on the internet. Gavancho put in the work and dedicated the necessary time so that every detail both small and large on Magia Piura's packaging stood out in a sea of cacao products.