Three limited, crazy flavours in eye-catching wraps. Every year the Tony's Chocolonely Limited Editions drive the hearts and heads of chocolate fans crazy. "De 2018 edition is really 'limited'", according to 'chief chocolate' Fleur. "500,000 unique wraps were created out of 3 designs." Thanks to Wihabo and HP Mosaic.
Fleur is "chief chocolate" at Tony's Chocolonely: together with her co-worker Eva she invents the striking flavour combinations. "This morning, I tasted twelve (!) new flavour combinations for next year’s Limited Editions. An onerous task, but someone has to do it right!" The unorthodox chocolate flavours reflect Tony's mindset: "Crazy about chocolate, serious about people". "We look at what is not yet on the market, at the international trends or at what item on our communication agenda we want to highlight. The result is a list with different tastes with potential."
Special in everything
Not every flavour ends up in the shops. For example, because the flavour simply isn't good enough or because the ingredients are too expensive. For the Limited Editions those flavours sometimes are achievable. Fleur: "It is a distinctive concept for our early stage clients, specialist retailers and smaller retail chains. It began small with 20,000 bars, but it quickly became a success. Now we make the twenty-fold, but still the client needs to be quick. With the Limiteds, we want to be special in every way: the taste but also the wraps!"
Visual style
The wraps play a special role this year, thanks to Wihabo and Klink. Klink (actually: Arjen, but we have two of them at Tony's) is the founding designer of the so recognisable Tony's look, feel and tone of voice. "From the start, our visual style is an important lever for telling our story. We don't want to resemble the rest of the store shelf, in nothing. This goes as far as: the unequal distribution of the bar, the handmade letters in the logo, wraps with bright colours on uncoated paper."
Algorithm
With the Limited Editions the designers have even more freedom to be different. "I can play with new things, in the design or printing technique." Such as Wihabo's idea to make every wrap different!" Ruud Bosch: "Using a special algorithm, the HP SmartStream Mosaic -a software program for digital printing- can create hundreds of thousands of unique designs from one base design." At Tony's they were very excited about the idea that not one wrap is the same. Fleur and Klink came to Geffen to discuss the possibilities and immediately decided: "we should just do this!"
Bright colours
A close cooperation was the result, and also an exciting process. With more than 70 printing hours the biggest run ever for Wihabo. And a challenge for Tony's, design wise. Together they developed three "seed files" as a source for over half a million unique wraps. To be exact: 450,000 Dutch wraps and 90,000 for America. Klink: "I had to make sure that there was sufficient diversity in the design. Then, together with Mike at Wihabo, I refined the patterns, details and colour combinations. The fun thing is, with this technique things emerge which you didn't think were possible. My design thus became a sort of graphic piece of art!"
Klink is thrilled about the end result. "The wraps are printed in 7 colours. They are bright and that is exactly what we want. The only thing I worry about is: how are we going to surpass this next year?"
Do you want to learn more about the technique behind these Tony's wraps?
Please view the video below and read Mike's blog >
View the entire process in pictures?
Our resident photographer Daniëlle recorded the entire wrap creation process with photos. View them here.
The facts: