Hello and welcome to my first ever blog! A little nerve wracking but I’m excited to share and I look forward to hearing back from you too.
I thought I’d get the blog ball rolling by doing a little behind the scenes of the first product launching now in May! …drum roll…. The Chocolate Chilli Shot……
So back in 2021 my partner at the time and I were in Newlands together and I was jobless due to Covid and he was/ is a freelancer, so we decided to open a little coffee shop in his garage. We put our creative talents, elbow grease, and determination together and within a month if I recall- we had one sexy looking garage pop up coffee shop.
They say situation is everything – and of course I agree and we certainly had that nailed. Situated on the bicycle track in Newlands Village we caught the eye of all the walking, running and cycling traffic (vehicle and motorcycle too- of course)
Since I was the coffee drinker, I was given the task of finding the best coffee, and so we went with the rich roast from Euro Caffé, not only was their coffee my favourite, but Kirsten is such warm and genuinely lovely human to work with. @eurocaffeza
Now I am a lover of dark chocolate, a lover of chilli and a lover of coffee- so it seemed a natural progression to bring those elements together and create a new little drink…and so it was, chilli infused chocolate ( a very specific ratio) added to a single or double espresso bringing the flavours together in a magic way, with that little hit of chilli at the end. Subtle, but damn good.
The early morning cyclists, runners and walkers loved it.
Okay, so to get to where I am now- the Pitstop ( our little coffee shop hatch) lived on until the end of 2022, when life took us in our separate directions and we closed the hatch on the Pitstop but the little chocolate chilli shot was just shelved in my mind, waiting for me to be ready to take it to the next level sometime in the future.
At the end of April, I left my day job to live a less stressful and more creative life, which is more my flow. I had one of my paintings up on the wall, one that I had painted during the time we were creating the Pitstop. It had been a ‘not so serious, just for fun’ kind of painting, but the more I looked at it- the more I started changing and turning it into less of a stylised piece and more of a realistic painting that I wouldn’t mind looking at every day. This African Woman, I decided, was going to be the face of the chocolate chilli shot.
I took her off to the wonderful Linda at Artland, whose team did a stellar job of photographing and colour matching the original painting, so I could continue with the packaging design process.
As I really wanted this product to read as fun, happy and a celebration of life, I drew colours from my ‘queens’ head dress and repeated some of those on the back, with simple shapes that speak a little to African fabric design.
For the logo, I used the chilli flower which is also in the original painting, and found some cool fonts from a very old Letraset book, which I played around with and finally came up with something that I think works!
After a bit of back and forth ( because I am basically relearning Photoshop) the very patient printing company is ready for me to sign off. A shout out here to TopInc ( Sherri) who has been extremely patient with me, thank you. Oh and of course, I am very fortunate to have an in-house proofreader, my youngest son (16) who is an AP English kinda guy and my eldest son (21) who is an extraordinary artist and my design sounding board. Thank you, boys, for being part of this process.
I look forward to writing more, on design, art, events, gifts and fashion in the upcoming months.
Until then, have a beautiful day. Make it a Chocolate Chilli Shot day!
Cheers
Elizabeth
