From 2017-2021, I was the lead designer for the bestselling Amazon brand Homestead Honey. Working with a small team, we launched several lines of honey sticks, honeycomb, and maple syrup. I was responsible for all product design and brand identity, developing the UX for our website and Amazon storefront, and collaborating regularly on digital marketing and art direction.
Homestead Honey Sticks currently hold the Amazon’s Choice badge for ‘honey sticks’, and Homestead Syrup has previously held the Amazon’s Choice badge for ‘organic maple syrup’. Our company was acquired by a larger CPG firm in 2021 due to the overwhelming success of our brands.
How did we get there?
Initial Research
Homestead approached me in the midst of a rebrand due to a trademark issue with their previous name. We conducted a competitor analysis, looking for unique gaps within the honey market. Most of the existing competitors branding was either bland, outdated, or targeted at children. For those competitors with modern designs, their price point was significantly higher than ours. We saw an opportunity to create a bold, clean brand at an affordable price.
Fresh Design
We opted for a bold, whitespace-driven design solution that would look great at all image sizes and display the key product information in a legible way. This maintained some aspects of the company’s previous design while dramatically brightening the products imagery.
Still lookin’ great even in thumbnail
Homestead Syrup
After a successful rebrand of the honey sticks, we decided to launch a maple syrup product. Based on consumer research we landed on the name ‘Heritage’ as it had the strongest positive association with interview subjects. Visual research suggested that simple & identifiable nature imagery would position us strongly in the existing market, as well as emphasize our USDA Organic certification.
Concept Mockups:
Initial Label Draft:
Final Label Design:
At this point we swapped the brand name to ‘Homestead’ due to a trademark issue with ‘Heritage’. While this initially appeared as a setback, we realized it would allow us to more easily market the maple syrup under the same name recognition as our honey sticks.
Website & Amazon Listings
For each of our products, I built out the Amazon listing page based on an analysis of competitors listings, highlighting the unique value proposition of our brands.
I also built & launched the website from scratch, utilizing clean modern design and the characteristic yellow header displayed across our different labels.
Launching Our Own Competition
By mid-2019, we were the bestselling honey stick on Amazon. We opted to see if we could capture more of the market share by launching several of our own competitors. The intention was to create two brands with entirely different visual aesthetics and demographic appeal. Though we didn’t go as far as crafting actual consumer personas, we did have two general consumers in mind: people who buy products based on a ‘pretty label’, and someone who wants a ‘simple and pure’ product.
These two products have enjoyed solid success - neither brand surpassed Homestead in sales, but they both proved to be profitable and allowed us to capture an additional slice of the Amazon market share.
Art Direction
Over the course of my time with Homestead, I regularly collaborated with the founders on art direction for our product photography. This was one of my favorite parts of the job - the wide-open landscape of creative decisions where every detail counts. We ended up with some pretty awesome product photography:
Conclusion
After 4 years of great collaboration, our company was purchased by Perch Brands for a sizable sum. This represented a dramatic success for all of us involved. I cleaned up & compiled all files and technical annotation for a successful handoff to their in-house design team.
Though I’ve worked with numerous startups over the years, Homestead was my favorite. I loved the consistent collaboration with the founders and other contractors, the challenges of launching novel products, and our ability to achieve consistent success through quality design & marketing.