Urban Roots
Brand audit, naming, logo design, marketing collateral, email newsletter, signage, and website design for co-op gardening center helps them to grow
Urban Roots is a local gardening cooperative on Buffalo’s West Side that sells indigenous and heirloom plants, gardening tools and specialty gifts year-round. Our work with Urban Roots began with the OtherWisz Brand Audit, which revealed general confusion with their former name and tagline. In the audit, we recommended an update to their name and logo to better communicate the co-op’s identity and message to their audience.
Throughout the naming process, OtherWisz worked with Urban Roots and members of the board to find a name that would better communicate the business to their customers. In the end, we decided on the name, “Urban Roots Cooperative Garden Market,” with the tagline, “Helping Buffalo Gardeners Grow.” The updated Urban Roots name reflects their mission as a community-driven gardening store and their dedication to helping their customers become better gardeners.
Services: Brand Audit, Brand Identity, Brochure/Collateral, Environmental Design, Logo/Identity Design, Naming Strategy, Print Management, Website Design
The update to the visual brand kept the logo design close to the original, but elevated it with a new set of colors and brand fonts to suggest the maturity of the business. The chosen typeface for ‘Urban Roots’ is unique and whimsical with its plant-like forms, while ‘Cooperative Garden Market’ is set in a sans serif font for easy communication. The final touches to the brand were in the development of a flexible color system that changes throughout the seasons. These colors help people understand that you can find helpful service, unique gifts, and plants at Urban Roots any time of the year.
OtherWisz developed branded touchpoints to reflect Urban Root’s new aesthetic, starting with business cards and their membership brochure. The four-color seasonal palette is used on one side of the cards with the cropped summer flower on the reverse, accompanying the contact information. The informational brochure encourages visitors to become member-owners in support of the cooperative garden market. Playful graphics and bright colors are the focus of the Urban Roots visual style, utilizing their full color palette and the flower symbol as the hallmark of their brand.
Keeping up with your customers through digital and email marketing is extremely important in today’s marketplace. Urban Roots uses their email newsletter and social media channels to let the public know what is in stock throughout the season. OtherWisz created a template with a variety of content types that the client can use to create their own emails. Urban Roots is already skilled at keeping their customers up-to-date with the store’s inventory. Now each email is both remarkably informative and comes along with their expert knowledge and gardening tips.
Having a website that is current with your business’ latest information helps keep your customers in the loop. The Urban Roots website has evolved into a useful resource for gardeners in Buffalo. The website solidifies their online presence and helps potential customers find the local storefront. Stated on the website are the location of Urban Roots, plus the plants, supplies and gifts available for purchase throughout the year. And naturally, the site includes a spot for customers to sign up for their informative email newsletter.
Like many businesses, Urban Roots needed to give customers a way to purchase their goods without physically going into the store. After consulting the board, they came to OtherWisz Creative looking to upgrade their website with an online store. Adding Ecommerce to the existing Urban Roots website was fairly straightforward, since OtherWisz websites are designed for growth from the outset. Their new Ecommerce shop is a complimentary design to the existing website, containing the products and offerings at Urban Roots that are sold online.
