Nature’s Treasures
Nature’s Treasures is a staple of the Austin, Texas local business scene. Their website claims that they are the “biggest Metaphysical Crystal store in the US,” and they are certainly well-known in the area. For this project, I decided to re-vamp their branding. When I looked at what they currently have, there wasn’t much of a cohesive system. There wasn’t a logo or a type system that I could find, and I felt that they may be missing some opportunities with merchandise options. Going in the store is an experience, and they deserve the branding to match!
Process and Ideation
One of the things I had always noticed inside Nature’s Treasures are their enormous amethyst crystals. Because this stuck out to me, I wanted to try a pastel purple/pink color palette and keep in line with other examples of branding for spiritual and crystal stores.
I really struggled with these sketches. The name “Nature’s Treasures” is pretty long and I had a hard time with figuring out how to fit that into a logo. I experimented a lot with different symbols and icons that could be used and came out of it with a few things that gave me inspiration for my next stage.
In my first round of digital drafts, I tried to deal with the name issue by shortening it to just letters and by fitting it in to different logo designs. I also tried incorporating their existing slogan, “We rock!” because I felt it matches the fun and quirky vibe that Nature’s Treasures is known for. This first stage helped me a lot with what was working and what wasn’t working, especially when thinking about scaling these logos up or down from what they were.
From there, I narrowed down to two different versions of my favorite logos. I chose the top one because I felt it solved the long name issue but keeps the essence of the business. For the bottom one, I had become attached to the typeface and the fun design, but knew deep down that it wouldn’t scale well and it would be difficult to make it work as a logo.
Final Design and Mockup
For the general branding, I created a logo, staff shirts, and a business card. The logo could also easily be put on regular t-shirts to sell to customers if the company desired to do so.
As far as branding items go, Nature’s Treasures has opportunities for some fun ones. They offer punch cards that allows the customer to receive a percentage off after they have made four purchases in the store; I loved that idea so I updated it to the branding I created. They also have a Rock Depot, where customers can provided buckets and purchase rocks in bulk. Currently, those buckets are plain colored and do not have any branding on them; I feel that placing the NT logo on them could be an interesting way to market the store, and even a unique merchandise options for customers to purchase.
This project was my first ever dip into branding as a cohesive entity. Completing this in the spring of 2023 allowed me to better understand the scope of later projects, such as the Thoughtful Paw brand identity shown in this portfolio as well. Creating branding like this in honor of such an Austin staple was incredibly enjoyable and I learned so much from it.