DJ Food In Your Ears, Cocoa Amore In Your Mouth.

It might have become obvious over the past year that Inkymole has been building on its involvement with chocolatier Cocoa Amore, whose shop and all-round hub of chocolate education moved last year into its beautiful new store in ancient Silver Street, in the heart of medieval Leicester (just along from the cathedral where Richard III is buried).

Our role there began with an event we put on - a chocolate-infused Buddy Wakefield show co-organised with Pete, Cocoa Amore’s owner - and has evolved from helping out with a little window decoration and signage here and there to fully immersive Creative Direction. We’re currently enjoying the fulsome challenges of everything to do with getting an exciting new franchise off the ground - branding, consistency, interior decoration, marketing, merchandising, communications…and more. It’s hard work, but we’re loving every part of it.

One of the first things we focused on is the in-store music. It’s well-recognised that music can help enhance the atmosphere of a cafe and store (Cocoa Amore is both) and so as soon as we were given the ‘keys to the shop’ we installed a new amplifier, good speakers and a live music streaming system. Playlists curated by us or by our guest artists is not only streamed live into the shop from our studio, but as Cocoa Amore Radio can be listened to anywhere in the world courtesy of Tune In.

Our first playlist we put together ourselves, but our second has been by our long-term friend and collaborator Strictly Kev aka DJ Food. Pivotal in the founding of groundbreaking record label Ninja Tune in the early 90s, Kev’s worked non-stop as a musician, designer, collector and writer ever since, staying ridiculously busy at the forefront of new music and design for music over a jam-packed two-decade career.

His current playlist takes a sci-fi, cosmic/psychedelic vibe and smushes it into different genre corners, roping in such glittering gems as Radiohead (from the new album), Gaz Coombes, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Jane Weaver, Annabel (lee), The Dragons, Lalo Schifrin, Jan Hammer and Vangelis. It strides across decades easily and with audible panache, and has provided the soundtrack to many an overnight session working at the shop. And we’re still not bored of it - in fact, it’s one of my favourite playlists of all time.

Listen in at any time, and feel the cocoa-y feels as you go about your day! (better still, if you’re close enough, get a gingerbread hot chocolate in the shop and listen in the warm chocolatey fug):

Cocoa Amore Radio

You can also listen to more DJ Food music and mixes and/or follow at these online establishments:
Soundcloud.
Bandcamp.
Facebook.
Twitter.
Instagram.

There is plenty more happening at Cocoa Amore to write about, but here are some historic blogs about our work at the shop:

Halloween Windows http://blog.inkymole.com/2015/11/halloween-signwriting-at-cocoa-amore.html

Share Certificates http://blog.inkymole.com/2015/11/i-liked-company-so-much-i-bought-it.html

Christmas Trees http://blog.inkymole.com/2016/02/christmas-trees-at-cocoa-amore.html

Mothers’ Day http://blog.inkymole.com/2016/02/snug-like-two-beans-in-cocoa-pod.html

The Legend That Is Solid Egg http://blog.inkymole.com/2015/03/solid-egg-2015.html

Lost & Found: II

Found when recently tidying the office: work that used to be part of a display of rejects, experiments, ideas, killed jobs and lost projects.

Posting one at a time!

This one was a wedding piece. Bricks and horseshoes for the bride and groom! They went with another one of my designs in the end, but loved this one too as I recall.

Lost & Found: I

Found when recently tidying the office: work that used to be part of a display of rejects, experiments, ideas, killed jobs and lost projects.

Posting one at a time!

D&AD Pencil for 'ReTweets of Love' Campaign

I've only just learned that the series of 7 pieces I did for Diet Coke via Droga5 won a Wood Pencil in the D&AD awards, for 'Art Direction for 'Poster Advertising'. Er yeah, they forgot to tell me that!

Here is the award story in full, and a reminder of the pieces. (Unfortunately the illustrators involved are not credited.)

The only one that didn't make it to a final was the jewellery - I designed 4 pendants in lettering for one of the Tweets, and 3D printing company Shapeways were going to make it a reality, right until the last minute when they pulled this design out of the collection, I think due to the concerns of technicals and legibility.

Those pendants are shown here for the first time though, with me modelling practice size experiments!

D&AD Pencil for 'ReTweets of Love' Campaign

I've only just learned that the series of 7 pieces I did for Diet Coke via Droga5 won a Wood Pencil in the D&AD awards, for 'Art Direction for 'Poster Advertising'. Er yeah, they forgot to tell me that!

Here is the award story in full, and a reminder of the pieces. (Unfortunately the illustrators involved are not credited.)

The only one that didn't make it to a final was the jewellery - I designed 4 pendants in lettering for one of the Tweets, and 3D printing company Shapeways were going to make it a reality, right until the last minute when they pulled this design out of the collection, I think due to the concerns of technicals and legibility.

Those pendants are shown here for the first time though, with me modelling practice size experiments!