Hopewell Nursery

Assignment: Find something in the real world that needs to be redesigned.  Discuss why its current design doesn’t work. Show how you would redesign it (like the “Gentle Dental example).

I chose my dad's business: Hopewell Nursery.  The companies website was designed about 6 years ago and has basic upkeep from time to time, but could use a lot of work. The logo is much too small -- hardly visible. The main focus should be the logo, not the picture next to a long body of text -- this screams BORING!  The fonts don't mesh very well together either -- one has hard edges, the other has softer edges (mixture between serif and sans serif).

I decided to take this original logo against a white background, without the vines along the side and the busyness of the webpage and change it.  I played with tilting to see the difference and envisioned how the tilts would look in different segments.  If you tilt the logo slightly and switch the corner it would represent a fun change.  At the same time it would draw the visitors eye to the opposite corner. This small, subtle change would make quite a difference. This would only prove effective if the logo is enlarged.  

Finally, I decided to make my own new logo for their company.  This wasn't the easiest task to do since I don't have any professional imaging tools.  I was able to use powerpoint to be semi-creative. For the logo in the top of the screen shot at the right, I used Futura along with Lucida Calligraphy.  I tried to maintain the same colors.  I added in an arch for a little spunk.  The two font types seem to fit well together displaying the quality and unique experience the nursery will provide.  The bottom font is boxed, which I'm not very fond of.  I used a box font hoping that it would close in the logo.  The Sans Serif font of Hopewell was to allow readability. My personal choice is the arched one at the top.