Another 3D chocolate printing project

The notice arrived from piq Chocolates yesterday that these 3D chocolate thank you notes have shipped to a client. I wish I could be there to see the reception.

The design for this was relatively straightforward. I’d known for some time I wanted to try a thank you gift, so ideas had been whirring in the back of my mind. At some point, the desire to do this coincided both with an idea I felt good about as well as the time to sketch it out. I was away from the studio, so I used my “café scanner” (a.k.a. my smartphone) to digitize it and began refining the artwork the same day.

We did do a test order first, as you can see in the photos, and were once again thrilled with the results. However, while the guys at piq say there’s no difference in the behaviors and limitations of the different chocolate types, I disagree. With a background in print, I’m aware that even the long history of ink hasn’t eliminated all inconsistencies. It looks like the same is true for chocolate. I noticed that the thin bottom bar was definitely more of a problem on the white chocolate version. Maybe it’s because there are more oils in white chocolate, or there is enough difference between the two materials that fiddly details (especially at the edge) will have trouble “sticking”.

In the future, I’ll stay away from demanding effects on the edges of the bar. That said, the milk chocolate on dark chocolate base turned out beautifully, and that’s what we had shipped to our client.

Since the last time we ordered, piq has been updating their site, and are also continuing to experiment with sustainable price points. For this reason, if you want to create your own, I recommend contacting them directly with any questions about sizes, prices, etc.

By the way, if you’d like to see the story about our first experiment with 3D chocolate printing and piq Chocolates, you can find it by clicking here.

That first piece, the “Taliesin” design shown at right, is now featured in piq’s marketing materials, as well.