Hey, my name’s Max Lin – I am the UI/UX designer here at Farm At Hand. I’ve been learning a ton about the awesome industry that is Agriculture over the past 6 months. Growing up in an Asian family, we were always taught to cherish every bit of food placed on our dining table, but it is working at Farm At Hand that has taught me what farming is really all about.
First of all, farmers are way more tech savvy than I thought they were. I apologize that it took me a while to shake the stereotypical farmer out of my head. Driverless tractors, drone inspection on fields, and all the gadgets to monitor every step of the production; I never knew that there was so much technology behind the food that I consume!
I was also surprised to learn that being a farmer is a creative profession. As a designer, we are trained to apply design methodology to every problem. It’s interesting to learn that farmers apply that same design methodology to their problem as well. Farmers deal with a variety of problems each day, and they are constantly experimenting with and designing solutions with all sorts of creativity. They build gears, modify equipment, and even create tools for better record keeping and management (actually, that’s how Farm At Hand was born).
So, while you were busy being creative on your farms, we underwent a major overhaul. We thought it would be cool to give you guys a little look into our office here at Farm At Hand.
You are awesome at providing feedback – thank you! This is your livelihood, you are counting on us to help you better manage your farming operations and we are up to the challenge! We heard you and the team got busy developing new the features to make the business of farm management easier. In parallel, we redesigned and relaunched the Farm At Hand website. It is important that our brand evolves with our program to better reflect who we are and what we do.
During the same time, we started by asking ourselves series of question: who are we? why are we doing this? how do we best serve our customers (that’s you, farmers!)? what do we want to be remembered by? The answers to those answers drove use to design a logo and brand that speaks to what we stand for: you, the farmers.
So, here’s how we did it:
Research Stage:
We started by reviewing the then current brand; how it performed in the market – for instance, could it be differentiated from other farm management programs. I put together a series of mood boards to find the overall theme and style that represented Farm At Hand. We researched what was out there and started seeking ways to stand out in the crowd.
Ideation Stage:
Let me say, we were not short on ideas! I sketched out hundreds of logos on paper before ever sitting down at the computer. Other team members also tried their hand at sketching logos…they didn’t make the cut. Thanks but no thanks, Kim, good effort.
Digitizing Stage:
Once the team agreed on a direction, this is when I finally sat down at the computer to illustrate the logo and test it out in various platform and applications.
Critiquing, refinement and testing:
Collaboration is alive and strong within our culture. Everyone shared their opinions and contributed to the creative direction of our branding. After all, this brand represents who we are as a collective.
After some time developing our new brand identity, we landed something that we all loved. We all saw something different from the logo. Some saw a RM map, some saw a field, but we all saw farming. It’s also sophisticated yet dead simple and it’s familiar yet original, just like us. We are FARM AT HAND.
I hope you enjoyed your look under the hood – and hope you love our brand as much as we do!