Alaffia, creators of fair trade body and hair care products, has a mission to empower women’s futures and entire communities in Togo, West Africa. But their in-store shelf presence and market share were overshadowed by better-branded competitors in the natural beauty space. Chen Design Associates was tasked to “bring back the soul” of the Alaffia brand through identity and packaging. The solution: a “Modern Africa” direction that stands out on the shelf and, explain the designers, respects viewers’ intelligence and references African symbology abstractly rather than borrowing from it directly.
Chen Design united six different collections — each with distinct audiences, multiple lines and scents — cohesively under one parent brand. The team developed an expandable color coding and iconography system which allows member of the family to represent what the brand stands for while expressing its own personality.
Chen Design also created the supportive tagline — Made with love and respect — that speaks directly to Alaffia’s core values.
