growing together.
Nursery & Garden Center
Š Morgan Lynn Stockton This book was created as part of the Design Systems course taught at the Kansas City Art Institute in the Fall of 2014 by Michael Kidwell. This is a hypothetical rebrand of the local business Heartland Nursery in Kansas City, Missouri. Good talk, buddy.
“My garden is the most beautiful masterpiece.” —Claude Monet
we just keep growing!
Heartland Nursery is the dream of Pete and Sherry Mistretta. We were first a fruit stand on Blue Ridge, then grew into a small 200’ x 200’ garden center called Blue Ridge Gardens. It was a very small lot with only 19 parking spaces, plus some creative grass parking. Back then, our customers knew us as the garden center with plants on the roof- not because it looked great but because there simply wasn’t enough space! Pete and Sherry had three children: Jen, Sam, and Rosie. If you were a customer at the time, you saw them running around playing and exploring. We were on Blue Ridge from 1972 to 2002 until we opened a few miles down the highway as Heartland Nursery. The beautiful, state of the art greenhouse has 80,000 square feet under glass and over 120 parking spaces. The greenhouse has large parking spaces and wide, even aisles. Our roof opens, which makes plants on the roof impossible! Pete got to enjoy his dream facility until he passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2006. We are proud to be an independent and family run business for over 40 years. And now that we’re coming up on almost half a century we think it’s time for a change for the better. We’ve chosen to become Sprout Nursery, a more welcoming and friendly brand. Something we feel will reflect us more as a company .
sherry mistretta Owner of Sprout Nursery
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Brand Expression 14 Brand Essence 16 Mission Statement 18 Brand Attributes 26 Target Audience
Visual Brand Elements 30 Logo 32 Typography & Colors 34 Patterns 40 Photo Treatment 42 Logo Staging & Wrong Uses
Brand Touchpoints 46 Letterhead & Envelopes 50 Stationery & Envelopes 54 Business Cards 58 Website 60 Aprons 62 Delivery Truck 64 Billboard 66 Plant Carrier & Plant Tags 68 Cookbook 72 Digital Cookbook 11
brand expression
Brand Essence
Growing Together.
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Brand Expression
Mission Statement Sprout Nursery strives to beautify the world and spread a love of plants and gardening to everyone. To achieve that, Sprout supports a knowledgeable staff and keeps a huge selection of healthy, beautiful, and seasonal plants.
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Brand Expression
Nurturing
to help (someone or something) to grow, develop, or succeed 19
Brand Expression
Fresh
bright or healthy in appearance 21
Brand Expression
Winsome
generally pleasing, often because of a childlike charm and innocence 23
Brand Expression
Neighborly
helpful and friendly 25
Brand Expression
homeowners
families
young adults
Target Audience Sprout aims to attract a diverse crowd of people. Those that would visit Sprout Nursery include homeowners interested in landscaping; families, especially those interested in getting their children involved in the gardening; and young adults, mostly female, who want to bring plants into their urban dwellings.
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Brand Expression
visual brand elements
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Logo Sprout is displayed in a soft, handwritten type that makes it feel more friendly and approachable. The small “leaves� coming off the end of the name can be viewed as a small sprout themselves or just a sweet accent to the name. The logo can be used in multiple color variations that can be chosen based on the context. This makes the logo more versatile and more fun.
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Visual Brand Elements
Scala Sans Growing Together. A a B b Cc D d E e Ff G g H h I i J j K k L l M m N n O o P p Q q R r S s Tt U u V v W w X x Yy Z z 0123456789 This type is for bright, fresh headlines.
Kepler Std Light Sprout supports a healthy lifestyle that includes fresh, homegrown cooking. Growing your own food not only saves you cash but also saves the environment at the same time. Bring food fresh from the garden straight to your table.
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz 0123456789 This type is for descriptive body copy.
happy cloud grow it. cook it. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxwz This type is for more personal touches, but only in lowercase.
springy green
green fields
spruce green
poppy red
tangerine
C: 36
C: 48
C: 55
C: 0
C: 7
M: 0
M: 0
M: 11
M: 67
M: 47
Y: 77
Y: 97
Y: 66
Y: 78
Y: 100
K: 0
K: 0
K: 0
K: 0
K: 0
Typefaces Scala Sans and Kepler were chosen for their complimentary contrast while both still having a light, airy feel to them. Happy cloud brings a personal touch to the brand.
Colors The colors used for the Sprout branding are bright and fresh. Springy green is used the most frequently in the system, especially in the brand logo.
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Visual Brand Elements
Poppy Pattern Sprout uses mulitple patterns to bring out the playful and welcoming nature of the brand. Each pattern highlights a different type of plant that is sold in the nursery. The first of these is the poppy pattern, relating to some of the beautiful and vibrant flowers that are available. This pattern makes use of the poppy red and tangerine colors as its dominant make up.
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Visual Brand Elements
Succulent Pattern Sprout uses mulitple patterns to bring out the playful and welcoming nature of the brand. Each pattern highlights a different type of plant that is sold in the nursery. This pattern uses the forms of different succulents and cacti that are available to take home. The three different types of green— springy green, green fields, and spruce green—are the main colors in this composition.
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Visual Brand Elements
Fruit & Vegetable Pattern Sprout uses mulitple patterns to bring out the playful and welcoming nature of the brand. Each pattern highlights a different type of plant that is sold in the nursery. The fruit and vegetable pattern references the variety of plants that can be later in the kitchen. This pattern uses the most colors to show how luscious homegrown food can be. This pattern can also be divided to use the fruits or veggies individually.
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Visual Brand Elements
Photo Treatment The photography used should always seem bright and fresh. It should emphasize how fun it is the be outside, working in the garden, enjoying the outdoors. Or it should emphasize the juicy colors of the food that might be shown.
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Visual Brand Elements
X
X X X
X
Staging Area When using the Sprout logo, use the measurement of the two small leaves as a margin surrounding the logo. Nothing should ever cross into that margin. This leaves the logo room to stand out and be seen.
What NOT to do. Do not put the Sprout Logo over a pattern or photo. Do not put the Sprout Logo in other colors. Stick to the brand colors! Do not remove the leaves from the Sprout Logo.
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Visual Brand Elements
brand touchpoints
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10300 View High Drive Kansas City, MO 64134
Letterhead & Envelope Letterhead for business interactions would feature the poppy patttern. It still carries the welcoming, fun qualities of Sprout but has a louder “let’s get down to business” quality with the eye-catching poppy red. Envelopes for this letterhead would also be red to stand out in a stack of ordinary mail.
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Brand Touchpoints
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Brand Touchpoints
Stationery & Envelope Monarch Stationery is used in addition to letterhead as a more personal touch. Monarch, especially folded in half, is closer to the size of a card, making it a more intimate experience. Colors are softer and more welcoming and make use of the succulent pattern. The envelope is printed with a fun interior that makes opening it even more fun.
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Brand Touchpoints
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Brand Touchpoints
Business Cards Business Cards make use of all the illustrative patterns that are part of the Sprout branding. Cards reflect the different categories of plants that the nursery offers, including vegetable and fruit plants, flowers, and succulents and cacti. The back of the cards have the owners name or the tag line, which would be used for the store’s general cards.
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Brand Touchpoints
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Brand Touchpoints
Website With the nature of plants, the nursery is unable to keep inventory online for ordering. This makes the website more of a social interaction with Sprout’s customers. Sprout can post new articles or blog posts, update some of their non-living products, or answer questions from the audience.
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Brand Touchpoints
Aprons Employees at Sprout Nursery would wear aprons. This would call them out from the average customer and also protect their clothes while working in the “get your hands dirty” atmosphere of the garden center. Three differnt color variations and patterns would be available for the workers to choose from. Each apron has the friendly “here to help” tag line, inviting customers to approach with their questions.
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Brand Touchpoints
Delivery Truck Sprout offers delivery services to their customers for large landscaping orders. They’ll bring your order in the very adorable vintage truck. It’s bright green color will attract the eye of the neighbors and gain some attention for Sprout. It also has some of the fun succulent pattern adorning the sides of the bed.
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Brand Touchpoints
Billboard Sprout is nestled off of Interstate-470 and really can’t be seen until you’ve already passed the exit. This billboard would be placed before you reach exit 5 and would encourage drivers to take the exit and explore the nursery.
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Brand Touchpoints
Plant Carrier & Plant Tags As an extra bonus, Sprout offers a sturdy plant carrier to take home your new plants. The carrier is made out of a oak wood so it can be reused for other purposes. The Sprout logo and “Growing Together� are burned into the side panels. The plant tages are large and white so they can be easily seen, even in a dense plant. The tag includes information like the common and scientific names, an image of the plant, and information on the care of the plant.
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Brand Touchpoints
Cookbook Sprout produces a cookbook that encourages people to grow their own food to use in the kitchen. The cookbook uses bright, tasty images of the food. At the top of each recipe spread is a short description of what you can grow yourself with fun illustrations to go with. People are encouraged to fill the large white margins with their own notes and make each recipe their own.
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Brand Touchpoints
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Digital Cookbook Sprout also puts out a downloadable iPad version of their cookbook. This way the homegrown recipes that Sprout has found to be tried and true are easily accessible to everyone, promoting that neighborly feeling. Recipes have been condensed to single “pages� so the whole recipe can be seen at once on a tablet. The cookbook uses the bright photography with hand drawn aspects to bring in a friendly, fun feeling.
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Brand Touchpoints
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Brand Touchpoints
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Sprout Nursery strives to beautify the world and spread a love of plants and gardening to everyone. To achieve that, Sprout supports a knowledgeable staff and keeps a huge selection of healthy, beautiful, and seasonal plants.