Case Study: Dolles Candyland

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The Story

There is nothing more authentic than a brand that has been around for more than 100 years. For Dolle’s Candyland in Ocean City, staying true to the company’s roots has been the key to building its brand since 1910. The company’s legacy has kept the business and brand relevant, motivated and competitive.

Just like their “made from scratch” candy, Dolle’s hand drawn logo became nostalgic for the family owned and operated business. Dolle’s was never really looking for a redesign or rebranding because staying true to the original brand was always a priority. They just needed a recharge. Something to bring consistency and a spark to a well-established candy company.

A 15 year client of D3, Dolle’s hired the agency for its website, adding e-commerce to the site, some graphic design and email marketing. The scope of work grew after owner, Anna Bushnell returned from a gift show in Atlanta where she attended a Pantone Party.

“I immediately wanted to update our colors.”

D3’s design team knew a brand as strong as Dolle’s deserved much more.

It opened the door to a brand standard guide with specific pantones, font sets, and a smaller mark (just the D) to prevent having to shrink the full logo down on specific candy packages. It also helped with continuously pushing out a consistent brand no matter if the logo was appearing on an advertisement, a sign or a bucket of caramel corn.

“When you have a lot of inconsistencies, with different fonts, shades of colors being generated from different design sources, you start to creep further and further away from your original design. Many times, to a point where you hardly recognize your own logo. We designed the mark for flexibility.”

But it didn’t stop there. Bushnell wanted more. She was looking for candy illustrations, images of candy that were exclusive to the Dolle’s brand. The D3 team went back to work on vector illustrations of taffy, popcorn and truffles and designed packaging templates with color palettes for different seasons.

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