Rebranding Suttons Seeds

Suttons Logo Mockups

Overview

  • Rebranding of Suttons Seeds
  • Redesign of Suttons Seeds’ User Experience (UX), including website, social media and offline assets
  • HND Visual Communications: Interactive Design
  • Solo project
  • My contributions:
    • User, industry and competitor research
    • Designing brand style and logo
    • Designing user flow, Information Architecture and navigation
    • Sketching and wireframes
    • Prototyping for website

Brief

This college brief was to rebrand an organisation and bring their UX (user experience) up to date. I chose Suttons as their logo is dated & has an odd spatial relationship with the rest of their website header. Their website’s UX also needed to be streamlined for an increasingly digital target audience.

Suttons Original Global Navigation Bar

Project

I conducted research into gardening trends and customer segments. I found that Suttons will need to address changes such as: smaller gardens; less knowledgeable gardeners; and the increase in online sales.

Suttons Sketchbook

Trends affecting the garden industry

  • Increase in renting homes for longer
  • Smaller gardens
  • Popularity of growing your own food
  • Less knowledgeable gardeners
  • Sales online are growing more than sales offline
  • Big data allows retailers to tailor their offer to each customer

Concept: Right here, right now

Prioritise showing customers the plants that suit their garden, which are ready to plant right now. Anything else should be treated as an edge case.

Logo

The logo needed to have a modern edge, yet evoke over 200 years of experience and heritage. I tried various treatments, such as simply straightening out the arced Cooper Bold of Suttons’ current logo, and more experimental treatments with plant-based ornamentation. In the end I settled for Cormorant Unicase in bold as it was authoritative yet modern. I paired it with Open Sans light for the strapline “Grow your own way”.

Suttons Logo Mockups

Navigation

I reorganised the homepage, navigation bar and footer so that they are:

  • Greatly simplified
  • Customer-centric (rather than focusing on the type of plants)
  • Encouraging for inexperienced gardeners
Suttons Home Page

Call to Action (CTA)

At present, Suttons’ customers may need to wade through 4,000 plants, most of which will not grow easily in their garden. I proposed a short survey that can pinpoint the right plants for the customers’ needs. A clickable prototype is available at: https://invis.io/U2BUQN3HW

With the answers to just five questions, Suttons can tailor the plants to suit:

  • the soil type in the customer’s garden;
  • the customer’s local climate;
  • the customer’s growing spaces (e.g. greenhouse);
  • the customer’s needs and wants (e.g. a family friendly garden);
  • any tricky conditions in the customer’s garden (e.g. dry shade);
  • whether the customer wants to plant now or plan ahead.
Suttons Plant Finder Prototype

This survey will limit the choice to, say, 50 suitable plants, reducing choice paralysis and increasing the chance that the customer will buy. The results would be categorised by the user’s growing spaces and could be saved in the user’s account. The images could also be tailored to the user’s circumstances.

Suttons Results Page

Online integrations

Banners and social media would be used to attract potential customers to the new-look site. The specific message would depend on the customer’s profile. For example, on Facebook someone who shows an interest in family-related posts might see the message “Answer 5 quick questions for your perfect family garden”.

Suttons Facebook Advert

Offline integration

This customer-centric approach will also be applied offline. At present seed stands in stores are arranged alphabetically, which does not take account of sowing time or the customers’ circumstances. A simple matrix will help here, as shown below. Customers can see at a glance which seeds are ready to be sown now, but still have the option of buying for the future if they want. Expert seeds might require specialist equipment, a lot of knowledge or a heated greenhouse. Easy care seeds could be sown straight in the soil.

Suttons Seed Stand

Conclusion

My rebrand of Suttons would attract a more diverse audience, taking account of modern trends and ensuring the company remains viable for the foreseeable future. The rebrand features:

  • An authoritative logo with a modern twist;
  • Calm, natural colours;
  • Simplified navigation;
  • Customer-centric UX;
  • Online and offline integration.

This project solidified my interest in UX Design. I later went on to study with the UX Design Institute, gaining a Professional Diploma in UX Design and a Professional Certificate in UI/Visual Design.