Indoor Farm Square Roots Reveals Reimagined Branding
As produce grown in controlled environments becomes more common in grocery stores, Square Roots, the technology-enabled indoor-farming company, has debuted a new brand identity to help stand out among the competition. The reimagined brand represents the company’s mission to responsibly bring locally grown food to people in cities around the world, all year round.
Square Root's modular smart-farm technology platform is used to deploy indoor farms in urban areas, empowering a new generation of young farmers to embark on careers in high-tech agriculture.
Square Roots’ new logo aims to balance the technical precision of the company’s smart-farm platform with the organic forms of the food it grows. This can be seen in the juxtaposition of the rounded letterforms and the rectangular counters in the company’s wordmark, which are a nod to the upcycled shipping containers that Square Roots incorporates in its farm design. The brand palette is a collection of vibrant colors abundant in the food that the company’s farmers grow.
“To tell the full Square Roots story, we needed an ownable design with high appetite appeal,” said Mariana Gorn, design director at New York-based Square Roots. “Every visual aspect — from our logo, packaging, color palette, photography and more — needed to reflect the vitality of our produce and the care with which we grow. The result is a refreshed brand system that celebrates how Square Roots bridges technology and nature to grow and deliver delicious local food responsibly, all year round.”
The newly designed packaging’s vertical label orientation serves as a nod to Square Roots’ beginnings in vertical farming. The thinner label format showcases more of the company’s product with a clear, bold type hierarchy intended to stand out on the shelf. Additionally, all of the company’s produce is 100% traceable through a scannable QR code on every package that allows consumers to see how and where their greens were grown, as well as who grew them.
“Consumers everywhere are increasingly demanding fresh locally grown food at their grocery store,” said Tobias Peggs, co-founder and CEO of Square Roots. “Our new brand identity clearly emphasizes that Square Roots meets those needs. We are all about increasing the availability of local fresh greens that our farmers grow with love.”
Square Roots collaborated with New York- and San Francisco-based independent strategy and design company Collins on the new brand system. The branding will start to appear on retail shelves, in-store signage, social media, the company website and more, beginning this month.
Indoor farming is in growth mode. Square Roots and its distributor partner, Gordon Food Service, held an Oct. 26 ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of their new indoor farm in Michigan. Located at Gordon Food Service’s Wyoming, Mich., headquarters, the new farm was deployed in just three months using Square Roots’ modular smart-farm technology platform. Inside the farm, Square Roots uses its proprietary cloud-connected software to constantly monitor and control various climates, allowing its farmers to grow a wide assortment of crops, including salad mixes and herbs. All Square Roots produce is completely free of pesticides and GMOs.
