Delicious! Foodie cards that look good enough to eat
Meet 4 of our hottest food industry brand-builders – and see how they built their business (and designed such mouthwatering cards).
We <3 the MOO community! Every day, we’re inspired by people all over the world who’ve built a brand from their own creativity – we think you will be too.
As far as we can tell, Instagram’s fuelled almost entirely by the kind of food photography that makes us wish it was lunchtime already. And of course, a lot of these plates come from the awesome entrepreneurs we’re lucky enough to count among our customers. Meet 4 of our hottest food industry brand-builders – and see how they built their business (and designed such mouthwatering cards).
Spice Mama
Spice Mama, founded by Shaheen Hughes, is a traditional Indian food and recipe project designed as a tribute to the women in her family. Shaheen hand-makes spice blends passed down through the generations, translating hand-me-down recipes that she shares in pop-up cooking classes in her hometown of Perth, Western Australia. Woah!
Shaheen told us: “Indian food is one of the oldest cooking styles in the world. There are thousands of years of knowledge about using food as medicine, and how to eat for your well-being.” This practice, handed down through generations of women, is exactly what Shaheen wants to keep that alive. She adds, “I want to make traditional, home cooked food look beautiful, and full of the love with which it has been cooked”.
Shaheen designed her cards with Printfinity – so she can show a range of her favourite images. “Indian food is all about a multi-sensory experience,” she says. “An explosion of colours, flavours and textures – you have to engage with it visually to really appreciate it”.
She printed her cards with a matte finish, and explains: “I love the smooth texture and strong stock quality, they are so tactile and really make my images stand out. The cards embody what I want to say about my brand – strong and simple, colourful, beautiful and full of passion. They help emphasise the sensory connection I want people to feel about food. It’s sometimes hard to describe a thousand things you want to say about your brand, but I can give people a card and it communicates the lot for me”.
Shaheen adds that if she could make one improvement to her cards, it would be to make them scratch and sniff: “I would get them to the smell aromatics, like cinnamon, cardamom and cloves”. Yum!
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Kate Prihodko
Kate Prihodko is a food photographer from Riga, Latvia, currently living and working in Tallinn, Estonia. Kate’s business started with a blog where she shared recipes that she’d created along with beautiful photography to accompany them. After about a year, she branched out into photography for restaurants and enjoyed it so much that she decided to grow her business in that direction.
Now, Kate’s work is focused around photography for restaurants, bars and magazines. She also does some advertorial work while continuing to write her own recipes.
Of course, Kate’s business cards had to be focused around food – her biggest inspiration. The hardest decision was whether to feature asparagus or artichokes on her cards – two of her favourite foods. She went for artichokes – great choice – and her friend Tomas, a designer, helped her with the illustrations.
Kate’s cards have a matte finish: “I like to go with classic finishes. I was so happy to see the end result – I love my paper and finish choice and my cards fully represent me and my business.”
Get your own Matte Business Cards
Latigo Coffee
Latigo Coffee is a subscription-based delivery service based in Los Angeles. With a background in coffee farming and eCommerce (a not-too-common pairing), the founder Mark aims to share the most exciting coffee stories from around the world with their community.
It all started in 2012 when he quit his desk job and moved to Hawaii to work on a coffee farm. In the 5 years since, he’s travelled the world in search of the finest coffee experiences. The idea for a coffee subscription (named after Latigo Beach in beautiful Malibu, California) came to Mark during a long bicycle tour of the CA coast last year.
As Latigo Coffee is only available via an online subscription, the packaging and unboxing experience is a huge priority. Having very little experience in design, Latigo reached out to their favorite Instagram doodler, RJ Rabe and shared the “vibe” they were going for. Together, they settled on the “Tandem” idea (the old-school Hawaii surfing design, which involves a Chemex coffee maker).
Latigo have printed the design onto Square Flyers – they get sent out with every customer’s first shipment. Mark adds, “the flyers were the perfect fit (literally) for our packages. They fit snugly with our shipments – each one features the Tandem design on the front, and we handwrite a thank you message on the reverse side for each customer.”
“Being a small bootstrapped operation, high-quality inserts go a long way. It’s funny how little things like these “thank you” cards (and our custom packaging tape from Lumi) can add so much value to the brand, even though we’re a tiny operation. People love receiving handwritten notes and our unboxing experience is integral to the business.”
Let your packaging tell your story – make your own flyers
Gabi Zuniga
Gabi Zuniga is a freelance illustrator specializing in food. Her aim is to enhance and stylize her subject, showing off it’s most interesting features whilst still maintaining the familiarity of the food we all know and love.
When it came to creating her business cards, Gabi wanted to place the food at the forefront, drawing people in with her eye-catching, appetizing designs. “I love being able to hand prospective clients and the people that I meet a card that I feel good about”.
Gabi uses Printfinity on a matte finish to showcase her portfolio: “Being able to get multiple designs on the backs of the cards was big deciding factor for choosing MOO. I love watching people try to choose between which design they love the best – people treat my cards like collectibles”.
Showcase your portfolio with Printfinity
Everyone loves flexible working – it fosters trust, engagement and, ultimately, happiness. But how can you maintain a strong brand with employees all over the world? Follow our 5 tips.
As the 34 million Americans who work from home according to Forrester prove, remote working works. But how well?
There’s no question that employers can access a wider pool of expert applicants and keep their team more engaged if they give them freedom-of-movement and location. Some studies even suggest that they’re more productive this way: remote working eliminates common drags on in-office productivity like noisy co-workers and impromptu meetings, according to Hubspot.
Yet with workers literally all around the world, there’s a danger that what’s gained in efficiency might be lost in camaraderie, which is a huge key to success.
As an entrepreneur, how do you balance flexibility and still foster a vibrant company culture?
1. Have a powerful common cause
According to the Harvard Business Review, “A great culture starts with a vision or mission statement. These simple turns of phrase guide a company’s values and provide it with purpose.” Without such a mission, teams lose central focus and harmful divisions form.
Just ask the 70% of people in the global workforce who, according to Forbes, don’t know their company’s own mission statement. It’s little wonder that in a Gallup poll last year, 87% of workers worldwide did not feel engaged in their jobs.
To combat this and build great culture, give your company something to stand for that’s bigger than money. It can be a social, environmental, humanitarian, or even idealistic. Retail brand Life is Good stands for “spreading the power of optimism.” Twitter wants “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information.”
Do your remote workers know what your business stands for?
2. Communication
There’s no better way for employees to get to know each other than good old-fashioned communication, and it’s up to leadership to set the example.
“Every successful CEO makes a special effort to get to know his or her team as individuals,” says Alexandra Levit, author of Inspiration at Work, who studies the factors behind great culture. “Show interest in your constituents’ (can include employees, partners and customers) lives and be willing to share some details about yours. The lower your pedestal, the more they’ll rally behind you.”
Communicate frequently and openly and encourage your employees to build relationships with each other as well. Chat tools like Slack can help by making communication not only easier, but also fun.
3. Meet when and where you can
Just because your employees are remote doesn’t mean that you can’t gather occasionally. Putting names to faces has the power to cement bonds that last a lot longer than the actual gathering.
According to Emil Skandul, founder of the U.S.-based digital design agency Capitol Foundry which has employees across Europe, “Meeting in-person is critical. As a company, every year, we choose one of our remote employees’ countries and we all fly out there for a visit. The impact on team morale is invaluable – worth so much more than the plane tickets.”
Do as Skandul does and if it’s practical, plan an annual meeting, a summit, or just a party to celebrate what you’ve accomplished together.
4. Show recognition and appreciation
As Maya Angelou so eloquently put it, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Positive recognition is something that people just don’t get enough of even in the best of times and showing your employees how much you appreciate them can build serious goodwill towards the company and help solidify that relationship.
In our experience, recognition is best done with a personal touch. Think less “gold watch with company logo” and more thoughtful, spontaneous gifts: say thanks often, post about their success on social media, offer additional perks, create an award, or grant them a bonus that helps them pay for something happening in their life, like a vacation or their children’s braces.
5. Strong print branding
Unify your global business with more than just a website – give it a physical, tactile appearance with powerful letterhead and bespoke business cards. These give your employees a physical touchpoint with the brand and the sense that no matter where they are in the world, they’re part of a well-run business that’s much bigger than the sum of all its admittedly excellent parts.
Great culture is always possible with any workforce! You just need to build great communication around a common cause and cement it with recognition and branding. Do this, and you’ll be able to harness the power of flexible workers without sacrificing the benefits of a powerful company culture.
Strengthen your branding with Business Cards
Growing a business is about more than a strong product – it’s about finding a big idea, a motivation that keeps you going. We met Amanda Wayne, founder of online self-care sanctuary Head & Hands to find out how she did it (and why she loves her MOO Notebook).
Small businesses with big hearts, those with purpose rather than product as their engine, have a stronger opportunity to flourish in today’s online economy than ever. We’re always delighted to find, among our community, those entrepreneurs who’ve set out not only to build a business, but to bring to life an idea. London-based entrepreneur and designer Amanda Wayne was driven to start a business, Head & Hands, with a strong idea about wellbeing at its heart.
What does Head & Hands do?
Head & Hands is a three-armed business. First, it’s a curated store of handmade products. Second it hosts conscious craft workshops run by me or guest artist makers. And the third thing is actually what started me off in the first place – Indian head massage.
The name ‘Head & Hands’ is all about making a connection with yourself – keeping your hands busy and your mind happy. I try to find ways to help people pause, be with themselves and feel happy and relaxed.
Where did the idea come from?
I have some chronic health issues, and I found myself seeking more holistic help for my illness. The place that I realised I needed to start was in making space to relax. I went to see a facial reflexologist – yes, like on the feet, but on the face! It was incredible! She really sorted me out, but she also had this amazing space. It was a real sanctuary.
We’d have incredible chats when I went in for a treatment and I felt very listened to and cared for. That’s when I started to think a lot about how I wanted to do something similar, but involving my background in art and making too. So I did a course in Indian head massage, which also brings together the relationship between head and hands.
How did your background in design lead you here?
Prior to Head & Hands, I was working for a design studio, doing a lot of community engagement work, running creative workshops. I worked with communities where there was going to be something changing – I helped them shape some of the design decisions that were being made in their environment.
I studied graphic art and design at university, then started working in schools, bringing together my art experience and working with people. People have always been at the centre of what I do, which is what led me to realise that there’s actually something really interesting about what happens to people when they’re making. It’s the soothing power of craft. I’ve worked with quite vulnerable people who can just transform when they’re learning, making and working with their hands.
After I first set up my business after university as an illustrator/graphic designer, my brand name was ‘With your hands’, because I was really interested in tactile work and the low-tech. I’ve always been about getting away from technology and getting back in your body. Looking back now, I can see all the links with all the jobs I’ve done before – it is all relevant.
How did you find your shop space?
It’s a strange story – I did my massage course, not knowing exactly why, just feeling like I wanted to do something new, then a space became available in my local area, Walthamstow. There was an incubator project running to help start businesses off. So I realised I could pull together not just a massage space, but more than that – I knew artists and makers so I realised it made sense to also be selling some things. Plus I run workshops, it’s what I’ve always done, so why don’t I bring all of these things together?
At this point, I had no furniture, no stock, just an idea on paper that had poured out of me when I wrote the application. I had a name, but it was no more than that – it was just an idea that seemed right.
I found myself in an interview for the space and they offered me it then and there. I only had a month and some measurements to work with – there was a moment where I taped out in my block’s hallway the size of the shop and had to put all my furniture out there to try and see how I was going to fit it all in. The shop was so small!
How did you find your suppliers?
All the products that I sell are focused and selected around self-care, well-being and looking after yourself, as well as celebrating the work of lots of different makers. The rule is that everything is hand-made, and I know a lot of jewellery designers and ceramicists so I had a core range ready made. I’m also a bit of a magpie on Instagram, so I found a bunch more I liked the look of and contacted the makers. Instagram’s a great way for me to find other makers, because it’s so visual and you can get a really clear picture of the ethos.
I gave all of these great makers the idea of this shop that didn’t actually exist yet and asked them if they wanted to be involved – they all said yes! So I started ordering things – like some really unusual products from America’s herbalism scene. They have some people making amazing potions and things you can’t get over here.
How did you mix these disciplines in one shop?
I had no idea how much stock to buy in – I just started buying. And of course, I was on a tight budget. I managed to get friends to help me build furniture and found some amazing things on eBay. I really didn’t think it was going to work out but it just all came together – it felt like a sign. I’ve never done this kind of buying for a shop before, so there were a load of new skills I had to learn.
The launch night was amazing. I’m normally a real procrastinator who can’t commit to decisions quickly but with the shop, I had to be really focused and just get it done. Because it happened at such speed – it happened exactly how it needed to happen.
A lot of people commented that I’d curated it really nicely and it’s that word – curated – that sums up what I really want Head & Hands to become. Positioning myself as the curator of a lot of really curious products and sharing the stories behind them.
When the incubator term ended, how did you try and give the same experience online?
There’s nothing quite like the connection you build up with your customers when you’ve got a physical shop – we’d have some great conversations when they’d come in, there was no urgency to buy and get out, it was about creating a lovely environment to be in.
Online you can’t quite create the same experience, it’s not as tactile, but that’s something I’m learning to work around at the moment. One of the things I’m doing is looking at creating a podcast about some of the makers and their products to make the online space come to life again. It’s an interesting transition.
There is of course the opportunity to pack up and personalise people’s orders though, which I what I’ve been really enjoying. I write everyone a little love note when I post them their box, and I’ve got stickers with uplifting messages on too, so the whole experience of unboxing the products is an act of self-care. It’s the equivalent of me having a lovely conversation with a customer.
You have a lot to balance – how does your MOO Notebook help?
It’s so luxurious – and sturdy! I can be quite clumsy, spilling things on my books and things, and it was nice to have something I was taking quite a lot of pride in. Having the page-protector, having a bit of discipline around having a journal for my own spiritual practice, as an act of self-care.
I’m guilty of spending too much time on my phone and all of those things, and it’s really good to get back in with a really nice book. I really like the lay-flat pages, particularly in the centre section where you can spill a drawing over two pages.
I use it for a mixture of things, as it’s so open to different uses. I use it to write to-do lists, to build a week plan, to sketch out ideas… I can be quite fearful of using books – I usually end up drawing on bits of paper and stapling them together, but this is such a welcoming design, I was unafraid to draw on the pages. It’s got the structure of the lines, but they’re quite faint, which I think is like the book saying to me, “There’s rules if you want, but you can break them.”
Follow Head & Hands
Twitter: @headandhands_
Instagram: @headandhands_
Facebook: headandhandslondon