Our brief is the same from year to year: package and deliver a pound of chocolate to 500 friends and clients, make it relevant, start in October, and have it in hands the week before Christmas. It’s a highly open-ended project with a high-pressure timeline, so the discussions are very high energy. The design team mines popular trends, sub cultures and counter cultures to find the perfect odd-but-accessible themes and inspiration, and this year magic and fortune telling proved a common thread throughout our favorite finds. What developed was Boissons de Madame Babineaux, a year-end pop culture cleansing dipped in the mystique of the French Quarter’s darker corners. With the help of this kit, recipients can relax with a mug of hot chocolate elixir, reflect on 12 amusing scourges that were visited upon us in 2013, and personally conjure a unique message from beyond to reveal what 2014 holds in store for them.

Our gifts, which are often fragile, must survive delivery via local courier as well as trans atlantic freight. As we designed the packaging and gift elements from scratch, it was important that the components be as self stabilizing as possible, and that any packing materials blend in or stay out of sight, especially with this year’s gift, as any styrofoam or bubble wrap would diminish the conceit that this mysterious box was an authentic relic from a New Orleans fortune teller.

This year’s gift was again well received, with particularly positive feedback on the art on the 12 individual spell cards and the special thermosensitive ink we employed on the 13th fortune telling card; the dense black ink disappeared to reveal the future when held above a steaming cup of cocoa. While the gift is intended entirely as an immersive experience to be enjoyed (we put very little branding on the packaging and never talk business in the copy) it’s had the enduring effect of reinforcing our position as inventors and doers, and it sets the tone for how we want people to think of Ultra throughout the year, to keep them asking, "How will Ultra surprise us next?"