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A Case Study

Greencraft Gardens Ltd. approached me last year looking for a complete overhaul of their company's branded identity. Another client recommended they have a word with me about their options, and after the initial phone conversation I scoured the Net to see what the competition was doing. Not much as it turns out. At the time there was little more than a few half decent sites with weak branding and off-the-shelf template-driven designs. I agreed to help, and quickly encouraged them to focus on their company's branding first of all, this would provide a steady foundation for a range of marketing products in the future.

Their original logo was a simple green leaf over a dark green company name written in Times New Roman. It had been created in Microsoft Word many years before, probably very soon after the company had been set up. It gave the impression of a self-employed guy with a van full of gardening tools. At one time that was true, but the company the MD had built up since had a workforce of over 30 people, a fleet of vans, access to a vast horticultural nursery and testing centre, and a great reputation built up by word of mouth that had very quietly built across the whole of the South East of England.

There were hesitations when I persisted with logo designs as opposed to the original 'leaf' concept. My client's argument cited the fact that many landscaping companies used trees in their logo, the leaf was his way of trying to stand out from the crowd. The problem was that some things are unpopular for a reason. A leaf represents fragility, even death to an extent, in the most humdrum natural order of things type of way. It's dropped to the ground and  left to rot. Hence the lack of horticultural logos incorporating a single leaf. So a tree it was, representing nature, growth, expansion, the perfect underlying message. Now to make it distinct from the competition.

Here is the process of logo development :-


With the logo in place, it was time to create an introduction with some impact. Remembering the story of Greencraft's humble beginnings I pushed the idea of an animated Flash intro is featuring one of their vans. Flash on this scale is something I normally avoid as it can be a bandwidth hog, especially for dial-up users. But considering Greencraft's  target market was shifting from consumer to corporate and government, it seemed apt to give their site an immediate impact with the following Macromedia Flash Animation.

I could see the elements of a successful brand gathering already. The MD was so impressed he used the logo for his fleet signage. I was given the contract to expand the company's marketing range into a selection of brochures and CD presentation for their core business and a developmental project for soil rehydration.

WDW's diverse range of marketing tools helped double the turnover of Greencraft Ltd. in just one year, Greencraft are currently expanding its market from a national concern to an international provider for international landscaping and construction serviced contracts for governments and corporations worldwide. 

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