Bridgeport, Connecticut

Colorblends Wholesale Flowerbulbs

Behold: Big, bold, beautiful, bodacious bulbs We were asked by Colorblends, one of the country’s leading tulip bulb importers and sellers, to help position the company, focus their messaging, and create a new set of identity and communication materials.

Our mission was to find a way to suggest the excitement, optimism, and beauty that tulips (and all flowers, really) represent.

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Colorblends occupies a unique niche: Working primarily with landscape architects and commercial garden contractors, the company develops and imports custom tulip blends. We updated the Colorblends logo, taking our inspiration from stenciled lettering on the sides of tulip bulb crates.

We designed the catalog to be engaging and informative and to inspire through example. Our marching orders were to “own color and springtime.” Not a bad challenge to be offered.
Our goal was to keep the text engaging, show the flowers in the largest and most appealing way possible, and make it easy for people to select and order their bulbs. We set out to convey the joy of spring while creating an engaging "machine for taking orders."

The catalog has a lot of fans.

A series of billboards reminding consumers to order early and plant in the fall.

The web site was developed to be an efficient and informative ordering tool for Colorblends’ customers.

A campaign of print and online animated trade ads help tell the Corblends story.
We developed full-color versions of the logo along with simpler variations to be used when color options are limited.

The shipping boxes provided an interesting challenge: How could we make something suggest colorfulness when we were limited to one-color printing?

When in doubt, use a whole lot of stripes.

Speaking of stripes, here’s our design for the bulk shipping palette covers. We rendered the classic Frans Hals cavalier in a way that echoes the approach of the striped logo.

A logo’s only good if it works on swag.

The Colorblends House & Spring Garden showhouse, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, features a demonstration garden that draws visitors from throughout the northeast. The lovingly restored Victorian structure houses artists' workspaces and a gallery.

Every year we design a series of promotional posters distributed to landscape architects and contractors.

Informative brochure and consumer transit advertising

Promotional poster reminding gardeners that fall is bulb-planting season.
Digital advertising

Designers
Alexander Isley
Erika Back
Angela Chen
Jennifer Merrill
Stephanie Trainor

Collections
The Herb Lubalin Study Center
of Design and Typography

Special Collections Research Center
NC State University Libraries

Museum of Design, Zurich