I worked with Frank over about 10 months to develop the complete Zio Frank brand identity, packaging for frozen pasta products, and an ecommerce/wholesale website. We wandered through different visual directions—some leaned too rustic, others too modern, others too playful—before finding the balance of traditional Italian food branding with a friendly, contemporary feel. 

We also had to break rules about typical Italian specialty food packaging: instead of the expected artisanal earth tones and script fonts, we used bold geometric shapes, bright colors, and a playful logo that felt more like a modern design brand. The packaging had to work in freezer cases, communicate the ancient grain story quickly, and stand out in specialty retail. We committed to a system that could scale from simple wholesale packaging to consumer pouches (ravioli, tagliatelle) to future product, building brand architecture that honored the Lo Coco family legacy while establishing Zio Frank as its own entity.