Ocoa Branding & Packaging
Client: Ocoa
Services: Branding, packaging
Brand strategy: Julie Kucinski
Product photography: Lilia Cretcher
Product photo stylist: Lidia Moore
Lifestyle photography: Misael Bencosme
Ocoa is a new line of clean haircare products founded by sisters Cory & Nicol Varona. The sisters grew up in the Dominican Republic, a place (like many others) where centuries of racism and colonialism have contributed to a widely held view that curly hair is a problem—something to be straightened and tamed, rather than cared for and celebrated. It was only in adulthood that the two sisters stopped fighting their curls and learned how to nurture what nature gave them. As they progressed on their personal curl journeys, the sisters discovered a gap in the market: the cleaning and styling products that worked the best on their hair were made from cheap, irritating ingredients, and the products with clean ingredients didn't work well. Eventually, they took matters into their own hands, and Ocoa was born.
The founders named the brand after San José de Ocoa, their mother’s hometown in the Dominican Republic. The word ocoa means “a place between two mountains” in the indigenous Taino language, and it’s a region of breathtaking natural beauty. The brand’s color palette takes its cues from the sea, the sand, the sky, and the rainforests of this lush, lovely place.
We designed the Ocoa logo both as a nod to the connection between the founders and as a symbol of the broader sisterhood of curly-haired women. The packaging system is bilingual to the core, reading in English when it’s right side up and in Spanish when it’s flipped over. This unique layout mirrors the immigrant experience of living in two worlds, and it invites Ocoa’s customers to experience the brand in whichever language they prefer.
