Plantella

As a Fellow with Dept of Illusions, my team was hired to deliver a product concept exploration for Refinery29: designing an app that acts as a home plant companion.

Work

  • Brand Identity
  • UI Design

Timeline

  • 3 Weeks
Hero
USER RESEARCH

How do millennials select and care for plants?

Using media articles, existing plant applications, and the Refinery29 audience, we were able to make observations and assumptions.

okokokok
okokokokokok
TARGET AUDIENCE

Millennials are all about that plant parent life

Plantella focuses on new plant owners and existing plant enthusiasts, ensuring all questions are met with the best care tips and answers.

“Growing herbs indoors has become my favourite hobby. It's so satisfying to see my plants thrive, and I love cooking with fresh, homegrown basil and mint. It's like having a little garden right in my kitchen!”

Plant Enthusiast

Jenny's photo
Jenny

“I want to spruce up my studio but I'm not sure where to start. I want to start with plants but I'm afraid I killed all the ones I ever had.”

Plant Newbie

Carmen's photo
Carmen
Articles
Refinery29's website contains a lot of articles for plant enthusiasts. Plantella will capitalize on the quantity and quality of this content to help users make decisions.
IDEATION

Designing for the user, deliverables, and goals

Both Jenny and Carmen like learning about plants that suit their lifestyles. This means they want to be able to figure out plant needs quickly and how to care for it if something goes wrong. Everyone likes to feel like they've got magic green thumbs. I focused on the community aspect.

Sketches

Deliverable goals

Discover
  • Personalized discovery
  • Environmental conditions
  • Living conditions
Plant
E-Commerce
  • Plant species
  • Care requirements
  • Growth habits
Plant
Educate
  • Identify plants
  • Diagnose health problems
  • Treatment solutions
  • Preventative tactics
Plant
Community
  • Share plant care tips
  • Ask questions
  • Connect with enthusiasts
Plant
DISCOVER

“Which plant fits my personality?”

“Which plant fits my personality?”
E-COMMERCE + AR

“Will this look good in my home?”

“Will this look good in my home?”
EDUCATE

“What’s wrong with my plant baby?”

“What’s wrong with my plant baby?”
COMMUNITY

“How are other people’s succulents?”

“How are other people’s succulents?”
VISUAL DESIGN

Building a brand identity kit

Developing a style guide using Refinery29's bright colour scheme. I kept the colours fun, vibrant, and approachable for a millennial audience.

Style guide
REFLECTIONS

Looking back on key learning points

As I look back at my journey at Dept of Illusions and this project, I've had some key takeaways while working on this exercise. But first, I'd like to thank my mentor Anas for introducing me to Devin and the Illusions Coaches and providing me this opportunity to grow as a designer.

Zoom call

I learned how to develop a visual design branding scheme. My goals were to learn how to build a brand. Using Refinery29's website as inspiration, I used their colors and fonts to get started. Under Shannon's mentorship, I learned how to select fonts, coordinate colours, and create a cohesive UI design. An area I'd like to implement within this study is UX Research to guide the design decisions. While we were provided with a prompt and few key data figures, conducting a comparative analysis by reading user reviews between several existing plant care solutions would allow me to analyze and validate the assumptions.