den Soil
A 100% plastic-free soil brand grounded in sustainability.
About the project
DEN reimagines soil and it’s packing using compostable, plant-based biopolymers and rigorously vetted local ingredients. They are creating a sustainable product that speaks to both eco-conscious consumers and environmental responsibility.
On a founding team of two, I built DEN from the ground up and secured it’s placement in national big box stores.
MY CONTRIBUTION
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Built DEN's commercial foundation as one of a founding team of two, leading the market research and stakeholder interviews that defined our core customer segments: boutique wholesalers and design-conscious urban plant owners aged 18–35. Identified a clear market gap in premium, aesthetically considered plant care products built for small-space living, and used that insight to anchor the go-to-market strategy.
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Developed DEN's full brand identity from the ground up, building a cohesive visual and verbal system, from logo to typography to creative direction, that could credibly reach both wholesale buyers and end consumers without losing its distinctiveness at either level.
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Conceived and prototyped a packaging system built entirely on recyclable and biodegradable materials, including a compostable-lined paper bag, recyclable paper tubes, and a plant-based packet. The packaging strategy was both a sustainability commitment and a commercial signal, designed to perform on shelf in design-forward retail environments.
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Developed the brand narrative that repositioned soil — not the plant — as the hero of the story. By reframing soil as a living ecosystem essential to air quality and sustainability, DEN could occupy a distinct and largely unclaimed space in a crowded plant care market.
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Directed the visual strategy to support the brand's commercial and narrative positioning, foregrounding the natural beauty of DEN's ingredients as proof of quality and ecological integrity, giving wholesale and retail audiences a visual shorthand for what made the product different.
BRANDING + WEBSITE DESIGN
education
DEN’s is committed to educating their customers on both plant and planet health. To showcase some of their sustainability and botanical expertise, we created a blog page that allows DEN a platform to communicate while also generating content for their social media channels.
ingredient focused
The impact and curation of the ingredients in DEN’s products lead us to spotlight each of them individually on the homepage as well as a dedicated ‘INGREDIENTS’ page. The ingredients page references relevant blog posts that allow visitors take a deeper dive into a materials impact and sourcing.
packaging design
Through an in depth research effort into biodegradable packaging, we selected three packaging typologies:
(1) a large, 12qt paper bag with a compostable biopolymer lining
(2) fully recyclable paper tubes in three custom sizes
(3) a plant based, biodegradable plastic packet
We designed, mocked up and tested many iterations of our packaging designs before ordering our final (final_final_final) design to be printed.
Initial Packaging Iterations
final packaging files:
