Every project we take on starts with the people behind the business, so we open with a discovery questionnaire: vision, values, audience, competitors, the ambitions a chef rarely writes down.

With Albahaca, one answer carried more weight than the rest. When we asked what the brand was about, the chef showed us a basil leaf he had drawn on paper. No reference board, no competitor he wanted to look like. Just the plant that gives the company its name, traced by the person who cooks with it.

We took that sketch as the starting point instead of a mood board. The leaf became the argument of the brand: this pasta comes from someone who works by hand, and the mark says so before you read a word.

So we refined his drawing rather than replacing it. The proportions got cleaner, the stroke gained a rhythm it could repeat across a whole product range, and the small irregularities that made the leaf his stayed exactly where he put them.

From there we built three creative directions, each with its own palette, its own reading of the leaf, and its own strategic angle. We keep these first proposals short on purpose. They exist to open a conversation with the client, not to hand over a finished answer in week one.

The chef chose the direction that kept the hand-drawn quality of his sketch and gave it room to breathe.

Then we developed it into a full system, because branding a pasta company that sells physical products means every decision has to survive contact with a printer, a label die, and a refrigerated shelf.