Growing evolved from just a weekend pastime to a full time endeavor when my wife and I decided to open an organic nursery. Field trips with the local schools gave us an idea for an organic seed starting kit, children's book, and curriculum centered around growing your own food with an emphasis on nutrition and environmental responsibility.
The vision...
With some help from Santa Cruz Industries, we were almost ready for production. Now we had to hustle to create the band that goes around the stackable product.
Complete 'clamshell' product shot. Contents included biodegradable pots, organic plant food, certified organic soil, organic seeds, and detailed instructions. I created stickers for all of the different varieties of seeds to avoid printing different runs of the belly band each time.
The kits earned a Parent's Choice Award in Spring 2011.
There are so many positive messages that go along with organic gardening. The best way to be everywhere at once to deliver them was a children's book. The development of a children's book and curriculum was the next step in the life cycle.
Illustrator Jeff Petersen provided me with these amazing illustrations from the rough storyboards I provided. Using a technique of my own in Adobe Photoshop I colored them to look like watercolor. Looking back it would have been faster to actually watercolor them, but the resulting high resolution files were print ready.
The book is also available for free in the iBookstore as a fixed width eBook to preserve the original layout.
The book is also available for free in the iBookstore as a fixed width eBook to preserve the original layout.
Video testimonial from a 1st grade teacher in California who put our curriculum to the ultimate test.
