Plant Parenting for Everyone
A field guide to help even the most plant-shy readers feel comfortable choosing a houseplant that fits their needs.
Project Overview
Objective
Design a field guide that features eight similar but distinct items within a subject of my choosing, using words, photos, and icons to make their small differences easy to understand. Developed for my Information Design course at The University of Baltimore.
Solution
This beginner's guide to houseplants features eight indoor plants that are easy to grow and hard to kill. Created for busy people who weren’t blessed with a naturally green thumb, the guide is designed to help anyone find a houseplant that fits their environment and their lifestyle.
The Process
I began this project during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — a time when many people were longing for the great outdoors. I chose "hard-to-kill houseplants" as my topic as a way to help fulfill this need, especially for people who don't have much experience growing plants. I designed the guide to empower readers to bring the outdoors to them, helping them weigh the many factors that can help them choose the low-maintenance plant of their dreams.
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Discovery
After picking "hard-to-kill houseplants" as the topic of my guide, I developed assumptive user personas to help me better understand my audience. I also performed in-depth research, creating a LATCH chart to organize my findings and identifying the eight houseplants I would include in my guide.
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Experimentation
During this next phase of the project, I focused on the guide's visual design. I experimented with typography, informational hierarchy, and layouts. I also played with different color palettes, photography, patterns, and icons. After going through several cycles of experimentation, feedback, and refinement, I was able to select the strongest designs to move forward with.
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Implementation
Finally, I brought all the feedback I'd gathered throughout the project together into a cohesive end product. My field guide is empathetic, engaging, and informative. Organized around effort, it walks readers through a collection of low-maintenance houseplants, from those that need the least attention to the most, while also flagging a range of possible concerns that could make a plant a bad fit.
You can view a complete digital version of the field guide below.