Translating Complex Pioneering Work Into a Single Narrative
WELLNESS LANDSCAPING & CONSTRUCTION
A 7-month brand restage that repositioned a permaculture landscaping business as a wellness construction company.
MY ROLE
Creative Director • Team Lead
CLIENT
Circlefoot, San Mateo, California
PROJECT OUTCOMES
Pioneering work, in clear language. Wellness Homes & Habitats translated 25+ unfamiliar services and esoteric concepts into a phrase customers could understand easily.
Three distinct service categories. We organized everything Circlefoot did, from landscape design to greywater systems to off-grid solar to feng shui, into Outdoor, Residential and Homesteads & Small Farms.
Strategic narrative and identity engaged new audiences. From the messaging architecture to the new identity, Circlefoot's mission "To deliver ecologically regenerative outdoor-indoor living solutions" was clearly conveyed across every customer touchpoint.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine a home where every detail is designed for the well-being of you and those you love. The entire ecosystem, inside and outdoors, is healthy and life-giving.
The radiant floors carry the morning’s warmth to your bare feet and the kitchen opens onto a flourishing garden through a wall of glass. You look out at the backyard, where the greywater system feeds the heavy grape vines tumbling over the pergola, built from a redwood beam left by the previous owner. The garden hums with bees and produces a harvest of figs, persimmons and lemons in season.
Your house is the realized vision of Circlefoot's team, conceived by the expertise of doctors, psychologists, architects, engineers and ecologists. A wellness home is a system designed for the health of the people inside it and the ecology around it. In 2022, no one else in the San Francisco South Bay was building this way. We helped Circlefoot clarify their purpose, define their audience, amplify their message and differentiate their identity, positioning them as a premier wellness landscaping and construction company.
RESPONSIBILITIES AS CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Shaped the project from proposal to final delivery
Assembled the team
Set the schedule & managed the budget
Ensured that the story stayed consistent and engaging across every channel and touchpoint
PROJECT SCOPE
Research & Insights • Narrative Strategy • Visual Identity System • Content Strategy
PROJECT TEAM
Creative Director • Brand Strategist • Design Director • Web Developer • Motion Designer/Video Editor
THE CHALLENGE
Six years after we helped Circlefoot’s landscaping business grow exponentially, they incorporated home construction and struggled to explain their services.
Circlefoot's vocabulary was technical and fragmented, with a service list that went from regenerative landscaping to wellness construction, to living roofs and soil management, to food forests and feng shui.
Circlefoot’s service complexity needed simplification before a single customer could understand what the company was offering.
How might we solve this problem?
How might we translate Circlefoot’s pioneering work into a narrative customers could grasp immediately and enthusiastically?
Our Solution - Circlefoot Wellness Homes & Habitats
A Strategic Narrative and Identity System Designed to Work as One
1. Strategic Narrative
We crafted a messaging framework that translated Circlefoot's pioneering multidisciplinary work into a compelling story for new customers.
Deliverables:
Tagline/Anchor Phrase
Narrative Frame & Positioning
Core Narrative
Narrative Pillars
Mission
Vision
Narrative Role
Talking Points
Audience Personas (Aya, Dale and Paul)
Tone Guidelines
Brand Personality
Service Categorization
2. Visual Identity
We created a new online experience and branding that highlighted Circlefoot’s ability to transform homes, homesteads and small farms.
Deliverables:
Updated Logo
Color Scheme & Palette
Brand Guidelines & Brand Asset Library
Print Collateral
Website Design & Development
Video Storyboards & Motion Design
3. Content Strategy
We developed the website’s content strategy and created case studies that brought the narrative to life for Circlefoot’s customers.
Deliverables:
Website Main Tabs
Case Studies 1 & 2: Individual Impact
Case Studies 3 & 4: Collective Impact
Suggested Blog Topics
SEO Keyword List
Video Storyboards
The Process
1. DISCOVER: WHAT DO AUDIENCES NEED?
Research & Competitive Analysis
We interviewed the founders, assessed all Circlefoot’s existing touchpoints, studied peer organizations and researched global wellness trends.
The goal was to discover the gap between what Circlefoot's pioneering work could accomplish and what customers needed to understand.
KEY FINDING
The marketplace was shifting from “doing less harm” to active regeneration. Customers were no longer satisfied with sustainability; they wanted to prove their homes could be a source of health and ecological restoration.
What We Learned About Our Audience & the Marketplace
1. Wellness lifestyle real estate had emerged as one of the top three growth markets in wellness, valued at roughly $134 billion. Homes were being treated as sacred spaces, designed proactively for the holistic health of the people inside them.
2. The construction industry was deeply fragmented. Architects, contractors and landscapers worked in isolation. Landscape was usually treated as an afterthought. Circlefoot's “Dirt to Door” approach integrated land management and construction from the start.
3. Individual climate activism was rising. Homeowners had begun to see their properties as their span of control, an opportunity to practice environmental activism by restoring soil, harvesting water and creating wildlife habitats.
2. DEFINE: SYNTHESIZING INSIGHTS
Personas & Narrative Frame
Using brand strategist Shantini Munthree's proprietary Love-Fear framework, we aligned Circlefoot and its target customers on the “Love” end of human motivation, united by a passion for nature and wellness. We defined Circlefoot's narrative role as Affinitizing (building affinity as a resource for customers' environmental activism), choosing to inform and educate a fragmented marketplace of regeneration-curious homeowners, landowners and design partners. This role empowers Circlefoot to lead the industry as a grounded expert with a clear, competitive voice.
We developed three audience personas. Each captured specific objectives, pain points and questions.
Audience Personas
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Aya Jacobs, 38
THE CONSCIOUS HOMEOWNER
Represents clients who are committed to healthy living and want their homes to reflect their values of sustainability and ecological harmony.Pain points: Doesn't know where to start, no time to project manage, can't have her kids living in a construction zone. Her question: “Can my home reflect my values?”
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Dale Brooks, 62
THE “DIRT-HAPPY” PEOPLE
Represents gardening enthusiasts, small-scale farm owners and homesteaders focused on productive land, soil health and organic farming.Pain points: Thinks he can DIY this (knows he can’t), worried it’ll be a money pit. His question: “Can I build something here that outlasts me?”
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Paul DiAngelo, 47
MISSION-BASED PARTNER
Represents architects, realtors and media partners who share Circlefoot’s ethos and help develop healthy, ecologically sound environments.Pain points: Finding collaborators he can trust for high-quality, eco-friendly work without oversight. His question: “Is there a specialist who already understands wellness living?”
3. DEVELOP: MESSAGING ARCHITECTURE
Core Narrative & Talking Points
We crafted a messaging architecture that clearly communicated Circlefoot’s expanded scope of services to its new target audience.
These frameworks were developed iteratively through prototypes and refined based on feedback from Circlefoot.
1. Narrative Positioning
Circlefoot is the leading wellness landscaping and construction company that designs, builds and manages integrated, regenerative outdoor-indoor spaces in San Mateo and beyond.
2. Core Narrative
Circlefoot follows the footsteps of those who lived and loved on these lands, to design, build and manage regenerative outdoor and indoor spaces for the health and wellness of people and place.
3. Tagline / Anchor Phrase
Wellness Homes & Habitats
4. Mission Statement
To deliver ecologically regenerative outdoor-indoor living solutions.
5. Narrative Pillars
Earth Care.
People Care.
Surplus Share.
6. Talking Points
We build ecosystems, not just beautiful homes.
Ecologically regenerative outdoor-indoor living solutions.
7. Tone Guidelines
The Voice: Authentic, Reassuring, Resourceful.
Brand Personality: Guiding, Competent, Caring, Forward-thinking.
8. Service Categorization
Outdoor. Residential. Homesteads & Small Farms.
Three categories organized 25+ services.
4. DELIVER: CONTENT STRATEGY & VISUAL IDENTITY
Website Content Strategy and Design Working Together
In the final phase of Circlefoot’s transformation, we brought the narrative strategy to life through the website content and visual identity. An iterative process with prototypes and feedback from Circlefoot’s leadership guided our strategic execution and final designs.
The new identity encompassed Circlefoot’s ethos of caring for the earth and its people while sharing surplus resources with the community.
We rolled out the messaging architecture across the website, print collateral, motion design and video storyboards, and gave Circlefoot new tools to engage their audience across social media. The Residential category welcomes homeowner Aya. Homesteads & Small Farms caters to “dirt-happy” Dale. And Paul (mission-based partner) can choose from either of these categories or Outdoor.
Circlefoot | Wellness Homes & Habitats
Website Content Strategy | Four Case Studies
Case studies 1 & 2 showed individual impact.
1) The Norfolk Project and 2) Bill's Homestead documented how regenerative design transformed specific properties into restorative spaces for a conscious-homeowner family like Aya and a dirt-happy land steward like Dale.
Case studies 3 & 4 showed collective impact.
3) Wellness Communities and 4) Ecology for Regenerative Impact imagined neighborhoods where fences come down and properties connect into one thriving ecology.
Together they mapped Circlefoot's narrative through past projects and visionary future endeavors.
Original Logo Refreshed
We presented new logo concepts to Circlefoot, but the founder had a deep emotional connection to the original Circlefoot logo. So we honored the original Circlefoot footprint mark while incorporating a home construction motif and refreshing the typography and color palette.
Circlefoot Color Palette
Website Color Scheme
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#00574f
Evergreen
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#414042
Espresso Grey
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#b7c1bc
Pistachio
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#b29e8b
Cappuccino
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#efe7e0
Light Beige
Logo Color Scheme
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#33b2c1
Aqua
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#00966B
Grass
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#A4C4CB
Moody Sky
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#005942
Forest
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#f6dbcf
Peach
PROJECT TAKEAWAYS
Rather than approaching strategy and design as separate endeavors, we married narrative strategy, website content strategy and visual identity for true brand alignment and a unified narrative across all touchpoints.
We transformed a landscaping company specializing in “ecological land development” into a Wellness Homes and Habitats construction company that “builds ecosystems, not just beautiful homes.”
We equipped Circlefoot with the vocabulary to make complex ideas easy to understand. Most importantly, we created a platform that welcomed and educated homeowners (Aya), landowners (“Dirt-Happy” Dale) and design partners (Paul) about Circlefoot’s unique approach to designing, building and managing regenerative outdoor and indoor spaces for the health and wellness of people and place.
THE RESULT
The strategic narrative and design work delivered as intended, but other decisions made during the engagement limited the business outcomes. Ultimately, we are unable to measure the long-term effects of our work as Circlefoot restructured and pivoted in a different direction.
PROJECT TEAM
Creative Director: Adele Berry
Design Director: Deb Harrison
Brand Strategist: Shantini Munthree
Motion Design/Video Editor: Razvan Stacescu
Web Developer: Jasmeet Singh