Iris Délice
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Iris Délice, also known as our creative playground, is one of those small, yet exquisite, businesses created 100% out of passion.
Peter Schuller (the owner) gave up his corporate job to start a sweetshop like no other, with premium quality ingredients and French cuisine craftsmanship. Not because he is our client, but his pastry is the best pastry we’ve ever had, and we took up the challenge to tell this to the whole world.
Our collaboration has lasted for 3 years, and we were in charge of the whole communication and marketing strategy starting from 2019 and until 2022, after launching one stunning confectionery shop in the centre of the city.
Our main objective was aligning the quality of the products with the quality of the communication, all of it being done on a tight budget and using ingenious workarounds.
Talking about “creative playground”, we’ll say just this: Iris Délice was the place where our love for gastronomy perfectly combined with our passion for Art History.
The before
We’ve met Peter Schuller at the place where we usually drink our coffee. It was one of those regular days, with random conversations with our friends from Let’s Coffee.
One idea popped out though: Iris Délice was looking for a brand manager. With our Pinch of Salt background and everything we knew about the hospitality industry, Alexandra has instantly recognized the potential of this business. With her acquired taste palette, she knew right there and then that Peter Schuller was the best pastry chef in Romania.
All of a sudden, the words „I would love to help you grow Iris Délice” just came out of her mouth.
When we’ve actually started working with Peter, Iris Délice was in its first year of activity. The Romanian market wasn’t ready (or fully aware) for the innovation in pastry, inspired by the French cuisine, brought by Peter. The brand wasn’t presenting itself as it should have been by someone who has this level of craftsmanship.
This is how the brand looked like when we started working with it:
We immediately noticed the gap between the visual language of this brand and the quality of their products. So we decided to:
Find a correct positioning for our products: upper-medium, affordable luxury;
Add a visual language and a tone of voice that conveys exactly our new positioning: colors, textures, photography, layouts, logotype;
Simplify the ordering process: we’ve stopped using the instant messaging (from Facebook and Instagram) for orders and moved them to a well-designed Google Form (we’ve told you we had to be creative with this client considering the budget limitations).
The first chapter
Gradually, we started implementing the 4 points explained before.
In terms of visual language, we’ve added a new color: an exquisite Bordeaux – perfect for our new upper-medium-positioning. We have also changed the fonts and thus we created some simple and minimalists layouts for our brand. This is how it looked like:
We have also worked on our tone of voice: being more and more transparent about the ingredients that are used, their quality, and the techniques - everything that made Iris Délice so special.
We started using over and over again the phrase: „something else”. „Iris Délice is something else”.
The idea was that the people would stop comparing us with everything that was on the Romanian market in terms of pastry. We were something else entirely!
Changing the photography was also one of our main concerns and desires. We wanted to suggest what kind of home could host our products and what kind of textures and atmosphere Iris Délice evokes.
The second chapter
After we experimented with new layouts, new photography, new tone of voice, it was time for the cherry on top.
There are plenty of ways of developing a menu in the hospitality industry, but we’ve chosen to move forward in the direction where everything wonderfully aligns: the idea, the form and the function.
Since our new storyline was that Iris Délice brings „something different” to the Romanian market, we wanted to connect this idea to the people taking part in the innovation of our society, by doing „something different” for real: THE ARTISTS. We wanted to blend works of Art into our little works of gastronomy-art.
The history of integrating art into other fields is filled with dreadful commercial examples and we knew this could be a big success or a complete failure. But since we have background in History of Arts and we have Art historians around us, what could go wrong?
We decided to launch our conceptual menus with a Suprematism movement, because the brand aligned with the philosophy behind this famous concept.
We’ve found Iris Délice in the ethos of pure feelings and in the pioneering that Malevich did (maybe a famous white surface with big black square painting sounds familiar to you?)
We were deeply involved in developing the best product design they could get and from this moment, we started working with David Stroe (our colleague) for the design of our menu and brand level-up.
We worked on the concept, art directing, product design, copywriting, print design. Everything was done from scratch. We love a challenge like that. Click here to see the full PDF of this menu. Here’s a preview:
The third chapter
Since the first menu was a complete success, we moved the story even further.
This time, we went on chronologically forward to the Art movement of Minimalism.
After a few sessions of brainstorming, we arrived at the idea of silent contemplation - a state of mind we all desire from time to time. We wanted to make Iris Délice customers think about these kinds of moments and pursue them as much as they can. That is the exact reason we’ve chosen Minimalism: eliminating the decorations, and any kind "noise" that could distract our clients from the taste, was one of our quests.
We also did almost everything on this project: concept, art directing, product design, copywriting, print design. Click here to see the full PDF of this menu, it’s quite beautiful.
The fourth chapter
After going through two concepts from the history of international Art, we wanted to bring everything home, to our roots, here in Cluj-Napoca.
We began looking around for a visual system that resonated with what we have already built. And who could be more suitable in this whole context than the well-known artist Radu Comșa?
For those of you who are curious about local creators, RADU COMŞA (b. 1975) lives and works in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
What you need to know about him is that he is one of the most famous artists in the Transylvanian area and his works have been exhibited, among others, at the Arken Museum in Copenhagen; Ujazdowski Castle Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw; Műcsarnok | Kunsthalle, Budapest; Marianne Boesky, New York; Peles Empire, London; Trafó Gallery, Budapest; Gaudel de Stampa, Paris; Space A, Pistoia; Lucie Fontaine, Milan & Bali; Prague Biennale & Timișoara Biennial. At the moment, his works of Art are represented by two international galleries: SABOT Gallery (RO / Cluj-Napoca) and Emmanuel Hervé Gallery (FR / Paris and Marseille).
We wanted to meet the criteria of aesthetics and location and, although the idea of working with Radu for a menu was anything but new, one needs the perfect place and right timing.
Peter and Alexandra were having coffee at Let’s Coffee (recognize the pattern?) discussing ideas for the new menu, in the middle of a creative blockage, at which point Radu arrived on his bike in an endeavor of enjoying yet another cup of specialty coffee. Through an absolutely perfect fit, the plans intertwined and what you see below is the result of their vision.
Life knows how to arrange stuff, doesn’t it?
The result: edible pieces of art and a project we are deeply proud of. Here’s some behind the scenes:
Of course, we did all the project management, concept, art directing, product design, copywriting, print design. Click here to see the full PDF of this menu. But here’s a preview:
The last chapter (for us)
Our last (and biggest) project for us was building a house for Iris Délice one that speaks of modernity, with refinement and respect at the same time.
Up until this point, the business has run its course in a small operation unit, with on demand orders. Since an actual location in the city center of Cluj is quite expensive, we had to seriously prepare for it and also making sure its concept was very appealing for the Romanian public.
We tried our best to mix the previous concept menus and the ‘something else’ concept, with the interior design and overall communication of this brand. Since our budget was limited, we used all the resources and creativity we had.
Our key objective was to move the concept from IRIS - associated with the neighborhood in which Iris Délice has operated so far - with another direction, a little more conceptual: the IRIS of our eyes.
The iris plays a very important role in regulating the amount of light rays that enter the eye. It shrinks under the influence of strong light and increases when the light is dim. This movement, which may or may not allow light and iris pigmentation to enter, has been linked (for us) to a confectioner's ability to handle the ingredients so as to produce reactions in the minds of the tasters. The better we handle the ingredients and understand the techniques, proportions, combinations of flavors, the more pleasant the reactions from you will be.
So we started abstracting the iris in a circle into a square - the element we've been working on the Synesthesia menu (the one in collaboration with Radu Comșa). We then began to imagine the motion of this square in a similar way to the natural motion of the Iris (more precisely, the photo motor pupillary reflex).
And from here, we’ve pinpointed the abstraction that you are going to see as a decoration on the wall in the new Iris Délice sweetshop - in a modest approach inspired by the work of Felice Varini.
In terms of interior design, there is an expression in Art, more precisely in the area of museology: an expression that speaks of a category of museums that are minimalist and white. In those spaces, the emphasis is entirely on the work of art.
In their case, the space is in fact a setting; it does not intervene in the work of art, but rather enhances its action by the lack of an imposing presence.
So we wanted to build a „white cube”: a place where the products are the centerpieces. With the Felice Varini on the corner and almost no branding, we’ve left the exquisite products speak for themselves.
We believe we’ve done this work splendidly. This was our final project for Iris Délice. We said goodbye with this Instagram Reel and wish them the best of luck :)
Team and results
All through this time, we’ve worked with a big number of freelancers and collaborators. We just hope we don’t forget to mention anyone (and if we do, please let us know):
Client: Peter Schuller and his team;
Project & brand manager: Alexandra Crăciun;
Art director, photo manipulation, design: David Stroe;
Architect: Ștefan Cătălin;
Production: Radu Măhăleanu;
Photography: Vizaknai David & Velum Photography;
Editing: Ioana Trușcan, Alina Stanca;
Special thanks to: Bogdan Iacob (art historian), Radu Comșa (artist), Marius Bugeac (social media manager);
In terms of results:
We managed to survive (and even grow with 15%) during the pandemic, when everyone in the hospitality industry was facing serious challenges;
With almost 0 budget for ads and advertising, our reach on Social Media platforms was way beyond our number of likes (3 times more than our likes);
The business has grown enough to gain trust in building an actual confectionery shop;
We managed to build a loyal community of fans who continued buying Iris Délice products even in the pandemic.