SPRUCING UP THE FARM’S LOOK & FEEL
Hello there! Welcome to a brand new blog post, on our brand new website, branded with our brand new logo.
We’re so glad you’re here!
For those of you who don’t know me (your author) I’m Liz Chatterton, the soon-to-be co-owner and “Treeative Director” of Treetop Acres.
My full-time day job is at an advertising agency, where I work as an Associate Creative Director – so when my fiancé Pat initially said he wanted to buy a Christmas tree farm, my first thought was about how much fun we could have with the marketing (and events).
And here we are getting ready for our very first Christmas season and launching our farm’s new look. 🥳
We say “new look” (instead of brand) because we know that a brand is so much more than what we see with our eyes. It’s a combination of tangible and intangible elements that distinguish a particular product or service from others.
This includes the visual design of course – so the logo, color scheme, typography, and image style. It’s also the company’s voice and personality. It’s how they communicate with customers. It’s the quality of their product(s), It’s the experience people have when they visit your location and interact with your people, and it’s a set of company values - both documented and lived. Perhaps most importantly, it’s the overall perception that people have of the business.
We’ve got great roots
We are very fortunate to be starting with a strong brand foundation, built by the farm’s founders John and Vicki Fuerch. Treetop Acres has a great reputation because they spent 34 years selling beautifully grown, perfectly shaped Christmas trees at fair prices. And when families came to the farm, they were accessible, friendly, and kind. All of that matters – and we plan to honor the legacy they’ve created by maintaining those elements of the brand.
We’re also branching out
At the same time, we wanted to create something fresh and new that marks this new chapter for the farm and better represents Pat and me, our family, and our vision for the future. After quite a bit of exciting exploration, some deep discussions, help from our friends, refining, and several large cups of coffee — we’re very happy with where we landed. We put a lot of thought into this new look, and we're excited to nerd out about it with you.
The new Treetop Acres logo and mark
We wanted a logo mark that could be flexible enough to create a system from, allowing us to use it in many different ways, With, or without, the name. And with, or without, the location included.
We love that the mark is so simple and modern. At first glance, it looks like a tree within a tree. And when you look closer, you notice the T and the A - for Treetop Acres.
Here’s a variation of the mark that we really like because it reminds of us a trail marker sign or a hiking patch. Our love of the outdoors and being in nature is just one of the reasons we bought the farm, and we love that we can reflect that in our brand.
As you can see, it's a mark that can flex and change based on what we need it to do. As an added bonus, we hope to someday (sooner rather than later) build an A-frame on the property (we both really love A-frames) and it's a great reminder of that goal.
We chose colors and typography that again feel simple and accessible – while delivering the same level of modernity and sophistication that we plan to bring to the farm.
We also spent time exploring our brand values, so we could make it easy for people to know who we are as people - and what our business stands for.
On the Our Story page of the new website, you’ll find a list of what we believe in – including tradition, adventure, holiday magic, hard work, having fun, sustainability, Santa Claus (obviously), and keeping it real.
Keeping it real is a sentiment you’ll notice throughout the website, because we feel passionately that “real” is always the right choice - when it comes to Christmas trees, transparent communication, and how you show up in the world.
Speaking of “keeping it real” we will update the photography to real photos from our real farm, once we really own it and can get a photographer out there. We’re so close!
In the meantime, take a look around our new virtual home on the World Wide Web, and let us know what you think! We’re always open to feedback!
