Putting The Icing On The Cake

Corporate identity and brand development for The Cake Room

The Cake Room launched in September 2007, selling highly bespoke wedding and celebration cakes from their high profile bakery and retail premises in the East Riding market town of Hessle.

The business was started by Richard and Philip Skelton. The brothers had previously been the fourth generation owners of Hull-based bakery Skeltons, which had become something of a local institution with 43 shops, a large factory premises in Hull and total of over 600 employees. Skeltons was renowned for its quality produce, of which the brothers were fiercely proud, with a loyal customer base throughout the city of Hull and the surrounding towns. Unfortunately Skeltons fell on hard times due to supermarket competition and rising energy prices. The business was bought by the rival Cooplands in June 2007.

The Cake Room’s prominent Hessle Square shop front in Hessle, East Yorkshire.

Skeltons had acquired quite a reputation over the years for their hand-decorated wedding and celebration cakes, with their cake decorators winning national awards. This gave Richard and Philip a niche on which to focus for their new business and The Cake Room was born. The Skelton brothers brought with them their own expertise and family tradition, and employed some of the highly skilled former staff members.

The Challenge

The Cake Room premises is a former Skeltons’ shop prominently located in the square in the west Hull market town of Hessle. The shop has been fully refurbished and refitted, and features full window displays of lavishly decorated cakes. The centre piece is a four tier castle cake bedecked with turrets and with dragons entwined around the supporting columns. The grand opening took place in the September of 2007, by which time we had to have a corporate identity ready and rolled out for the shop signage, stationery and other publicity materials for the launch.

Welcome to The Cake Room - Step inside!

As with any new business, positioning was crucial. Ideally located to serve the affluent west Hull villages, The Cake Room’s key markets include society weddings, family parties and celebrations as well as corporate functions. The corporate identity we designed had to appeal to this sophisticated and discerning customer base. The brothers wanted The Cake Room to present a very contemporary image, and we also felt that image should reflect the bespoke nature of their product, along with the high degree of skill and attention to detail evident in their work.

Richard and Philip were keen to break with the very traditional image associated with the former Skeltons business. However they also recognised that a loyal customer base had been providing repeat business down the years. It was important that these grass-roots customers were not alienated, and where possible they should be encouraged to transfer their loyalty to the new business.

Our Approach

We pitched a number of ideas to the client during the initial design stages. One of the core concepts which we advocated was to base the corporate identity on a custom-drawn hand-lettered logotype. Our thinking was inspired by confectionery and ice-cream brands which use this approach to good effect. We felt that the use of a hand-lettered font would allude to the hand-finished nature of their product, and the custom-drawn letter forms would reflect its bespoke quality. We also pitched various colour schemes. Our favourites included rich and dark blues, greens, reds browns and purples – luxurious, indulgent colours inspired by a number of leading contemporary and celebrity-led restaurant brands.

The Result

The chosen design was a custom-drawn hand-lettered logotype in black set on a pale ivory base. The logotype is simple and free-flowing, suggestive of piped icing. The letter forms themselves are quite wide and extended suggesting indulgence. The colour scheme is plainer than we originally intended, however this provides the ideal counterbalance to the dark brown woods and black marble surfaces within the shop. The black on ivory makes a very crisp, clean statement, tying in nicely to the lucrative wedding cake market.

The Cake Room final logotype design in black and ivory.

The logotype itself is augmented with the “by Skeltons” strapline, set in capitals in a very light, understated typeface. This provides a connection with the former Skeltons business, while allowing The Cake Room’s primary brand to dominate. The logotype has sufficient strength to stand on its own in the future should Richard and Philip decide that the association is no longer required.

The Cake Room wedding cake point of sale literature.

Since its launch The Cake Room has gone from strength to strength, attracting significant interest from footfall past their impressive shop front. As well as breaking into new markets and establishing themselves as the region’s leading supplier of designer wedding cakes, The Cake Room has managed to capitalise on the loyalties of Skeltons’ former customers. Not only are they still being commissioned to produce many of their long-standing cake designs, but due to popular demand they have started selling Yorkshire Curds baked to the original Skeltons recipe.

As well as shop signage, literature, stationery and web site, the corporate identity has been implemented broadly across point of sale and packaging materials. It has even been cast in chocolate!