Silva Salt
Brand development
I am from a family of artisanal sea salt farmers. After years of seeing our Portuguese region in decline, I wanted to shift that curve. Following a few chats with two friends at the pub, we decided to start Silva Salt, a business that would sell my family’s artisanal sea salt.
One of my key roles has been brand development: market research, brand narrative, personality and tone of voice, taglines, concept development, logo design, brand guidelines, packaging, photography and image editing. As the project lead starting a business with two friends, I also set the basic premise: we will work on this as long as it is fun and worthwhile.
We looked at the various markets for salt, noted which ones we could target and profiled our competitors. Aware of the wider perceptions of salt, we also asked friends for their views, which helped steer the narrative.
Narrative
I started by writing all I knew about the salt. After the "brain dump", I categorised the content, did further research, and fine-tuned the narrative. It was through this process that a lot of components started to come to life. The salt is unlike any other salt we encountered, in its flavour profile and chemical composition. The artisanal method of production is unique in the industry, and for the farmers this is a way of life. Sprinkled with the history and the flora and fauna – the content almost wrote itself.
Speaking with my uncle and other producers in the region, their challenge became clear: they struggle to find new markets. Through a change in generations and ways of doing business, their word-of-mouth contacts slowly disappeared, and they don't possess the know-how or the support to market their produce. Seeing the region in decline despite the unique properties of its salt, we established the brand's positioning statement: to revive the rich heritage of traditional sea salt harvesting by bringing its artisanal produce to a new generation of foodies, chefs and food producers.
Character and tone of voice
The character of the brand is multi-faceted.
Talking about its product and method, the language is honest and straightforward, embodying the character of the producers and the simplicity of the natural process. When talking about the brand's story and mission, it is a balance between nostalgia and romance for its heritage and way of life, combined with the reality of today and the ambition of what we are trying to achieve.
Through social media channels, although these are not live yet, we want to show the joyous side to enjoying food and of the lifestyle of the profession. Social media is saturated with food content and recipes, but not so much of the joyous moments around food: one of the key emotions we want people to resonate with.
These values grew somewhat organically. Initially I jotted down a number of words that resonated with "the salt and its touchpoints", which resulted in about 20 different words. It seemed like too much to represent Silva Salt on the whole. But really, "this" (a trait) resonated with "that" (a topic), which led to breaking it down into different topics. Although these are not set in stone, they provide a foundation to each different aspect of the brand, and create a more defined character overall. As the brand develops, it will be interesting to see how many of these traits remains key components, or how the brand will mature into something more defined.
Taglines
Looking at possible taglines, we came up with over 50 and then narrowed them down to the ones that appealed to the different target audiences (food producers, foodies and chefs), or represented a facet of the brand in a way that was distinct from the competitors.
Throughout the entire narrative, I have avoided vague terms such as "pure", "intense" or "rich" flavour, "gourmet", "sophisticated" or any term that doesn't reflect the qualities of the product in a tangible or differentiating way.
There's a lot of trial and error with these. Some come out in moments of sass, others feel like they're onto something, and eventually either fit into place or fall by the wayside. My business partner is an important sounding board, reinforcing the effective ones.
Logo concept
For the logo, the pyramids of salt are quite a striking visual, intrinsic to the artisanal process, and unique within the salt industry. This seemed like an obvious starting point.
I explored pyramids in a geometrical style, detailing shadows and the water rippling. Tentatively, I also introduced two tones: blue for the skyes and a dark brown for the mud flats. I played with the rippling idea in After Effects – the effect looked good, but the logo itself wasn't working. One of the initial ideas was to have the salt pyramid indicate the time based on the position of the shadow. Or tell the weather depending on whether there was a reflection on the water or not. But we were trying to make it sing and dance before it could walk.
I explored other avenues, such as wave patterns often found in Portuguese paving stones and blue tiles.
Logo iterations
After those initial drafts we wondered which elements were relevant. We considered the reliance on the sea and the sun, and landed at the concept of sea, sun and salt.
Visually I wanted to bring all the elements into a simple shape, and it was interesting to tune the dial between literal and abstract representations.
Brand colours
Colour-wise, most of the competitors use shades of blue and green, and in order to stand out we knew we needed to go in a different direction. Given the intense sunny skies and the joyful personality of the brand, yellow seemed the ideal colour to connect emotionally and embody the brand's values.
Final logo
We narrowed it to four options we liked, and then down to the one composition, which represented "sea, sun and salt" as simply as possible.
I also started to explore typography options that had a greater thick-thin contrast, to reflect the coarse nature of the salt. I discovered Noctis by Zetafonts, which reflected that character, and tested it on a few applications.
I then refined the logo: made the sun's circle rounder, the water ripples gentler with softened edges, and adjusted the scale of the water and the salt pyramid inside the sun. Typographically, I adjusted the kerning and we highlighted the Silva Salt name by writing it all-caps; I refined the colours for contrast and accessibility and created three versions of the logo.
Once we were happy with the outcome, we settled on this version in order to progress with other aspects of the business.
Packaging
There was a learning curve with packaging. We looked at supermarket shelves, gift shops, luxury retailers.
We looked at salt competitors, fragrance, fashion and chocolate brands, dinner sets and the tile and glassmaking industry to find inspiration for both the brand and the packaging.
At the start we had a great prototype (apologies, no picture!) with a cork lid. And theeeeeen… to cut a long story short, we looked at the bottom line and there was no way we could afford a custom package. Our print-runs would also be tiny, so we were limited in terms of what was achievable off-the-shelf. However, with a few lessons learned, we opted for European-made glass jars, and labelling that works across a range of products. And digitally printed labels in vinyl are water and corrosion proof, which is as good as we will get for a short initial run.
We have also learned a lesson in the cost of packaging, product margins and what is feasible.
Artisanal sea salt is a low-margin, high-quantity product, and cost will be a key consideration. Flor de sal, on the other hand, is a luxury product with higher margins and lower quantities, so visual appeal will be a greater consideration. From a business perspective, we see the two products quite distinctively: whereas artisanal sea salt will be the bread and butter of the business, flor de sal will be the product that builds the brand and sets us apart from the competition.
The designer and the entrepreneur
It’s been pivotal to understand what to prioritise to create a realistic business. We can't afford to hire copywriters or photographers, so every element is down to us. And I have loved every challenge so far.
Things need to progress in a timely manner too: suppressing the itch to tweak and iterate so we can progress with the other parts of the business, like liaising with consultants and working on financial plans.
Having said that, the creative process continues: ask me and I’ll tell you how I'd love to evolve the photography. To introduce an illustration style, tweak the typography, and improve the logo. To interview people and capture local stories to share on social media. To evolve the packaging and do short-run product drops. And to produce the saltiest calendar ever.
I keep on writing all of these down: on scraps of paper, Notion pages, Word files. I'm confident we'll get there, but all in good time – we're having fun.
