Prodigal Media was approached by Felicia Caiazza, Vice President of the Caiazza Candy Company, with an assignment to create new designs for the packaging of several Caiazza products.

Caiazza Candy is known for its upscale chocolates and provides a variety of candy to such retail outlets as Nordstrom's, Starbucks Coffee Company, May Company and others.

Says Felicia Caiazza, "We believe packaging is the most important element of our marketing effort." Caiazza wanted packaging design that would be fresh and original enough to stand out from competitors, but that would not fall so far outside the realm of what shoppers expected in chocolate packaging that they could not quickly identify the product.

For the Holiday Pretzels and Graham Crackers packaging, Prodigal Media's John Battaglia wanted to take an approach that was simultaneously "hip and festive." His illustration of a sleigh laden with Caiazza's chocolate confections meets both criteria. Additionally, the sleigh imagery and its association with old Saint Nick subtly reinforces the idea that Caiazza's pretzels and grahams make for perfect holiday gifts.

For Caiazza's large and small size Smores packaging, Battaglia evoked a nostalgic campfire setting appropriate to the product. His logo-like treatment of the product -- juxtaposing the font "Dogma" for Smores with the font "Tiki Holiday" for Chocolate Covered, and superimposing them over an illustration of a silver nickel-like moon -- enhances the retro look. Battaglia's package design for both Caiazza's Chocolate Meltaways and Raspberry Meltaways is proof of what can be done even when the budget calls for one-color printing.

Battaglia's technique for creating the "font" used on the Chocolate Meltaways package was a culinary collaboration with his 4-year-old daughter, Nina.

"I dripped melted chocolate out of a squeeze bottle onto wax paper laid over our kitchen table," says Battaglia. "With Nina's encouragement, I kept writing out the words 'Chocolate' and 'Meltaways' until we got the right look, and then I took digital photographs of our best efforts."

There are many good ad agencies in New York and there are several good agencies in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. The talent of the people at Prodigal Media and the passion we put into our work is comparable to or better than what you will find coming out of those shops. 

- Jeff Hedrich