Castle Foods Brand Identity
A logo, type, and identity system for a heritage spice importer — still in use today
Case Study · Castle Foods
A logo, type, and identity system for a heritage spice importer entering a new chapter
Castle Foods is an importer, processor, and purveyor of spices — a B2B wholesale supplier serving foodservice clients since 1948. Spitball brought me on to lead design on the brand identity: logo, type, color, packaging direction, and a system built to scale across a wide product line. The system is still in use today.
Brand Identity
Project overview
Castle Foods is an importer, processor, and purveyor of spices — a subsidiary of Kalustyan Corporation, sourcing and supplying herbs, spices, and seasonings to foodservice and wholesale clients since 1948. The brand needed to communicate heritage and quality to B2B buyers without feeling stiff or institutional. The goal was a system that felt confident and considered, and that could absorb a wide, ever-growing product line without requiring a rebuild every time a new SKU joined the catalog.
The problem
Castle Foods supplies a wide catalog — every spice, blend, and seasoning a working professional kitchen actually uses. Their existing brand wasn't keeping pace with the quality of the product or the expectations of the buyers they were trying to reach. They needed a brand that felt premium and intentional to foodservice and wholesale clients, and a system that could absorb new products without forcing a redesign every time the line grew.
What I did
Logo and wordmark
The primary mark, lockups, and variations
The wordmark is a quiet custom serif font with a memorable "C" so it feels grounded on the shelf and strong as an independent mark on packaging and social media. A small crown mark anchors the brand's heritage line — "The Sovereign of Spices" — which became the secondary signature beneath the wordmark. Lockups handle every common application: vertical, horizontal, mark-only, and small-scale. Variations cover the SKU lineup without ever requiring a redraw.
Type and color system
Hierarchy, palette, and a single accent
Color is muted earth tones — black, ivory, and a single warm gold that carries the line. Typography hierarchy is generous and direct so a customer can read the spice name from a step away. The accent gold is the only place the brand allows itself to get loud, and that restraint is what makes it feel premium next to the noisier shelf neighbors.
Design system
Components and rules that scale across SKUs
I built the system so adding a new SKU is a 10-minute job, not a 10-day one. Named slots, locked grid, defined photography rules, naming conventions. The brand expression scales without the brand having to rebuild from scratch each time a new product joins the line.
Outcome
The brand has a confident, quiet, modern presence that holds across every SKU and every channel. The system is still in use today, absorbing new products as the line has grown without needing a rebuild — exactly what a category-entrant brand needs in its first three years and beyond.
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