ABOUT PROJECT:
Urban Chocolatier is a UK-based dessert restaurant specialising in indulgent offerings, including waffles, gelato and cakes. Despite its strong product appeal, the brand lacked visual consistency and failed to reflect the quality of its customer experience.
This project focuses on delivering a cohesive and elevated brand identity that enhances perception, strengthens recognition and creates a more engaging customer journey across both physical and digital touchpoints.
The Goal:
To modernise and unify the brand while preserving its core identity, creating a system that feels both premium and playful and can be consistently applied across all franchise locations.
The Challenge:
As a franchise-based business, large-scale visual changes, particularly to primary brand colours, would introduce significant costs for individual franchisees.The challenge was to refresh the brand without disrupting its existing infrastructure. This required retaining the original primary colour to minimise operational impact, while introducing a refined typographic system and a brighter, complementary colour palette to bring new energy to the brand.
MY ROLE:
Brand & Design Lead
Industry:
Food & Beverage (Dessert Restaurant / Hospitality)
Creative Services Delivered:
⭐️ Brand Strategy & Creative Direction
⭐️ Logo & Visual Identity Design
⭐️ Typography Systems
⭐️ Packaging Design & Menu Design
⭐️ Colour Palette Development
⭐️ Marketing Campaign Design & Brand Collateral
⭐️ Exhibition & Environmental Graphic Design
⭐️ Motion Graphics for In-Store Digital Displays
⭐️ Shopify Website Design & Management
CUSTOMER RETENTION & LOYALTY EXPERIENCE
THE OPPORTUNITY
To strengthen customer retention and encourage repeat engagement, Urban Chocolatier introduced a digital loyalty ecosystem powered by Leat, connecting both in-store dining and online purchases into a seamless reward experience.The programme was designed to create a more engaging customer journey through reward-based interactions, tiered memberships and referral-driven growth, helping transform repeat purchases into long-term brand loyalty.
CUSTOMER JOUNEY:
Visit Store → Scan QR Code → Join Rewards → Receive Offer → Redeem Reward → Return Visit
REWARD-BASED LOYALTY EXPERIENCE:
Customers were able to collect points through purchases across the restaurant and online store, creating an omnichannel loyalty journey designed to encourage continued interaction with the brand.As points accumulated, customers could unlock and redeem rewards throughout different stages of their customer journey, creating a more engaging and rewarding customer experience across both digital and physical touchpoints.The system was designed to make participation feel simple, accessible and rewarding while reinforcing stronger repeat purchase behaviour over time.
LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP TIERS
To strengthen long-term engagement, a tier-based lifetime membership system was introduced to reward continued customer loyalty and repeat spending. Customers could progress through multiple membership levels, unlocking increasingly exclusive rewards, gifts and loyalty benefits as they advanced through the programme. This gamified structure helped create a stronger emotional connection with the brand while encouraging customers to continue engaging with the loyalty ecosystem over time.
REFERRAL PROGRAMME:
Alongside the loyalty system, a referral programme was introduced to encourage community-driven growth and customer advocacy.Existing members could invite new customers into the programme, with both the referrer and referee receiving additional points and welcome rewards upon joining.The referral structure helped support organic customer acquisition while reinforcing engagement through shared rewards and incentives.
LOYALTY SYSTEM STRATEGY:
Alongside the visual customer experience, my role also involved defining and implementing the loyalty framework within the CRM ecosystem, including reward structures, membership progression logic, referral incentives and customer engagement rules.This included configuring how customers earned and redeemed points, how tier progression was unlocked and how referral rewards were distributed across different stages of the loyalty journey.By combining branded customer experiences with behavioural engagement mechanics, the system was designed to encourage repeat visits, strengthen long-term customer loyalty and create a more seamless omnichannel reward experience.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TOUCHPOINTS:
My role focused on shaping the branded customer experience across multiple digital and physical touchpoints, including:
• Loyalty campaign visuals
• CRM and reward communications
• Digital promotions
• In-store onboarding materials
• QR-based loyalty activation
• Reward-led engagement assets
The objective was to create a cohesive and premium loyalty experience that aligned with Urban Chocolatier’s elevated brand identity while making customer participation feel intuitive, engaging and rewarding.
Enhancing Storytelling with AI-Powered CREATIVITY:
I use AI tools such as Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT, Nano Banana and other emerging platforms to enhance my work as a brand designer and creative lead. These tools support design, copywriting, technical problem-solving and creative development.
AI allows me to work faster, think more broadly and explore ideas more freely, from visual concepts and motion design to copywriting and rapid prototyping.
The result is a more efficient creative process, stronger brand storytelling and engaging experiences that are strategic, visually compelling and built for today’s digital landscape.
