El Latido de mi Corazón
My name is Olivia Francesca and I am the artist behind A Cake Story, the product designer of the ACS Cake Design Tools and owner of the ACS Academy for Cake Art & Design.
My cake design inspiration comes from fashion, art, nature, literary works, architecture and via the love stories of my couples. I specialize in Cake Art with Fondant and Sugar Paste. I love to challenge norms, break some cake rules and rediscover ways to make avant-garde statement cakes for people who are equally daring.
ACS Shop designs and creates tools for cake artists, cake decorators and crafters.
The tools I have designed stem from my own experience and needs as a cake artists. I was looking for modern, minimalistic and geometric patterns. Patterns seen in everything from buildings, windows, tiles, stonework, and even intergalactic aesthetics.
During the first few weeks of the global lockdown of 2020, I was deep in meditation when I saw this entire concept in my thoughts, I saw my tools, my shop and my passion for sharing these with fellow cake artists and cake decorators.
From that moment on I embarked on a journey of conceptualizing, drafting, testing and insane amounts of trial and error.
CakeTiles and CakeReliefs are cake design tools that were born from my own needs as a cake artist and from the desire to produce something unique.
Now I am ready and excited to share my tools and ideas with other cake artists, designers and cake decorators. My goal is to expand the selection of design opportunities and possibilities - to inspire other artists and decorators to explore their own creative potential.
I believe wholeheartedly that proximity to the Arts is cleansing for the soul.
Being able to provide Green/Sustainable Tools to encourage and support creativity is at the very core of ACS - it is El Latido de mi Corazón (the beat of my heart).
I hope you enjoy your tools and please tag your designs as I'd love to see them!
Made in Switzerland
In deciding what type of materials I should use to manufacture my collection of Cake Design Tools, I had two key non-negotiables:
They had to be made of Green/Sustainable Food Safe Materials.
2. They had to be produced locally.
These two crucial criteria put the production of my tools on a longer and more costly path.
But as I said, they were non negotiable.
I could have settle for the much cheaper version, using micro-plastics, manufactured in a mass production company with questionable Environmental and Human Rights ethics.
The result would have been that my products might have been much cheaper, however my guilt for being a part of a global crisis astronomical.
I rejected all these options.
I set out looking for companies in Switzerland (the country where I live) and neighboring EU countries.
CakeTiles are designed and made in Switzerland using a food safe biopolymer which is derived from plants as opposed to microplastics and petroleum.
I drove to a little town nestled at the foot of the Alps and picked up the CakeTiles from a business owned and operated by a group of ETH Graduates (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich)
CakeReliefs are from Germany are made from food safe recycled PET.
Because I chose to use Green / Sustainable materials in the production of my Cake Design Tools, means that the care and handling instructions are much different then that of heavy duty, micro plastics.
Unfortunately, we have been conditioned to believe that "durability is equal to high-quality" and "fragility is equal to cheap"
The truth couldn't be father away.
It only makes sense though..
If a product can withstand harsh and aggressive wear and tear and years and years of application, with thousands of passes through the dishwasher, then imagine the longevity it has on the planet long after we are gone.
My Cake Design Tools are made of the highest quality of Green /Sustainable materials.
Their high quality and environmental friendliness means they must be treated with care and fragility. As long as you care for the ACS Cake Design Tools in the recommended care instructions , they will last you for a while. but not forever, And that is a good thing.
Society needs to put pressure on legislative bodies to force mass production companies to use high quality sustainable materials that do not cause long lasting damage to the planet. This shift will enable small businesses, innovators and product designers to have access to more sustainable technology and materials.
Society must stop leveraging durability against sustainability and the future of our planet earth.
Until then, as a product designer, I will continue to pursue the latter.
The shipping packaging and leaflets are made of recycled materials and can be recycled back with paper and carton, including the packaging tape and document holder.
Ensuring a greener planet requires action from stakeholders ranging from governments to the private sector to civil society, international organizations, and everyday citizens.
A Cake Story Shop is committed to the pursuit of sustainable production patterns wherever and whenever possible.
Using local manufacturing companies, reusing packaging material and the proper disposal of waste through proper recycling practices serves as the highest priority for ACS Shop products.
With your purchase, you are not only supporting a small business, you are supporting a business that places importance on the wellbeing of people, animals and the planet.
Your products will not last a lifetime - I promise.
Integrity & The Artist Code
This section is a bit difficult to author without risking being controversial, but it needs to be said, and I stand behind every word of it.
In the Art world, creativity and ideas are often protected by way of the artist code.. which some respect, and many do not.
In this statement, I want to not only protect my work, my products and my designs, but also to apply the artist code; The code of integrity.
Throughout this entire process I have remained acutely diligent in ensuring none of my products either,
1. Already exist in the exact form
2. Already exist in exact name
Prior to launching my product line I did extensive research on product nomenclature to ensure my product names do not mirror 1:1 those of other cake design tools.
I wanted to create a line of products that was unique and offered new styles and methods in cake artistry and sugar sculpting.
My cake design tools are the result of deep meditative state and observation of my own needs as a cake artists.
Do impression tools exist? Yes, they do. But impression tools are ideas and ideas cannot be IP protected. Just like lollipops, gift wrapping paper and even CAKE cannot be IP Protected.
CakeTiles, CakeReliefs and the tutorials featured in ACS Shop are protected under Intellectual Property and belong exclusively to Cerletti Cake Designs (A Cake Story)
A Cake Story does not grant permission to duplicate the CakeTiles, CakeReliefs or Tutorials for reproduction and sell as your own, be it online or in face to face workshops.
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About my Cake Art and Style:
While I admire many artists work, and have paid for many courses to learn techniques and methods - my designs are born from deep introspection, application of those learned techniques and methods, and lastly and most importantly; my own fingerprint.
Therefore it is with confidence that I state that I am not a "self taught" Wedding Cake Artists, rather I am an artist who has been educated in the medium of sugar.
The cake designs I have created are based on the methods I've learned as well as the thousands and thousands of hours invested in trial and error and studying and mastering my medium.
Because I have a profound respect for fellow cake artists and the intense emotional process that goes into creating cake art, I am deeply committed to making sure my ideas and designs are not copied from other cake artists, rather from observing nature, architecture, reading literature and listening to music, and from fashion and other forms of art work - just not other cake artists work.
I make it my own personal ethical code to not copy 1:1 anyone's work. My history and work reflects this.
In the event that I am inspired by another artists, regardless of which medium, I always state so and include credits.
The cake designs that have been created by me as an artist and as you see on all ACS Social Media sites and Website belong exclusively to A Cake Story (Cerletti Cake Designs) and stem from my own creative imagination and process.
You are welcome to be inspired by my art, but I ask that you respect the artist code and not create 1:1 copies of my cake art.
Credit must be given to A Cake Story whenever an image of A Cake Story cake is used for any published media, be it print or online.
for example:
Inspired by @a_cake_story_
techniques used as taught by @a_cake_story_
Conclusion:
To conclude - I have unfortunately witnessed a few genuine Cake Artists who have ventured into selling their own tools and tutorials be merciless copied and plagiarized by others who operate on low to no integrity levels.
To those types, I leave this message:
Cerletti Cake Designs (A Cake Story) will apply the strictest measures in place towards any persons or businesses who copy, mirror, imitate, plagiarize or resell the cake design tools and/or cake design tutorials featured on ACS Shop.
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Meditation and Introspection are great ways to channel creativity.
There are enough ideas floating about in the ether that have not yet been taken.
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