DIGITAL DESIGN
ROLE: Brand & Product Design *(self-initiated)
SKILLS: Brand Strategy · UX/UI & Prototyping · Motion Design · Copywriting · Paid Social · Packaging · AI Workflow
TOOLS: Figma (Smart Animate) · Illustrator · Photoshop · AI-assisted concepting
CONTEXT: Speculative brand · digital product-led plant subscription · B2C
Confidence, delivered with the plant.
Most plant subscriptions sell aesthetic. New Leaf sells competence — calm, confident, a little clinical in the best way, like a good doctor rather than a lifestyle influencer.
The Challenge
First-time plant owners don't usually kill plants from neglect — they kill them from uncertainty. Most subscription brands sell aesthetic and hope the plant survives the rest. The challenge was designing a brand where the product itself — not just the packaging — solved that uncertainty, from the first quiz answer to the plant settling on someone's windowsill.
My Approach
I designed New Leaf around a digital product core: a short quiz that reads light, space and time commitment, then generates an ongoing annotation profile for that specific plant — ambient care guidance rather than a one-off card. I prototyped the quiz-to-reveal flow in Figma using Smart Animate, treating motion as reassurance rather than decoration — slow, deliberate transitions that mirror the brand's calm, competent tone. I also used AI to rapidly iterate quiz copy and annotation language, testing tone variants before locking the voice.
The Concept
A connected system where brand, product and growth all reinforce the same idea: less guesswork, more relationship. The quiz logic extends into paid social hooks, the annotation system becomes the packaging's first touchpoint, and the site's motion does the same reassuring work the copy does.
What I Learned
The best plant brand isn't the prettiest one — it's the one that quietly makes you feel capable. Digital product thinking and brand expression aren't separate disciplines here; the interaction *is* the brand voice.
