Earthman’s Living Soil: A Flowering Business Rooted in Organic Growth
Earthman’s Living Soil is an emerging brand providing organic living soil solutions for eco-conscious growers. I was brought on as a freelance designer and developer to reimagine their brand and online presence under a tight one-month timeline. This included a complete logo redesign, an icon system, and five custom product labels. One of the unique challenges was integrating a cannabis plant into the artwork in a way that felt natural but not too obvious. I developed a visual style that struck this balance while giving each product its own identity.
In addition to the branding, I redesigned their WordPress website with a focus on accessibility, usability, and engagement. I added custom UI components, created a reusable button system, and ensured all imagery had alt text for better accessibility. Using Figma, I delivered interactive prototypes that streamlined collaboration and feedback. I also overhauled the site’s SEO strategy, raising it from 0% to over 80%. The end result was a unified, professional brand experience across both packaging and web that reflected the company’s mission and elevated its online presence.
Logo & Packaging Design
With full creative control over Earthman’s Living Soil’s visual direction, I started by replacing a basic vector logo and generic sans serif wordmark originally selected by the previous developer. The only guidance I received from the client was that the logo should feel earthy and be easily recognizable by customers. I embraced this open-ended challenge by researching a wide range of organic soil brands, analyzing packaging trends, colors, typography, and iconography used across the industry. I wanted to ensure my work stood out while remaining immediately identifiable as soil-related.
Using Adobe Illustrator, I created a clean, versatile logo in vector format that captured the spirit of the name Earthman. From there, I developed six custom product labels, each with its own color palette and hand-drawn wordmark to match the tone of the product name. One standout was “Ka-bloom,” which was inspired by comic book action words like “Pow.” I styled the lettering to convey motion and explosive energy. Designing a unique wordmark for each variant allowed me to create a distinct identity while maintaining consistency across the product line. The result was a cohesive, eye-catching packaging system that gave the brand both character and clarity on the shelf.
Figma & UI Design
To bring the website vision to life, I created a Figma file that included wireframes and multiple design variations for the homepage. I began by outlining a clean and organized wireframe to define the site’s structure. From there, I explored four different layout directions, each with a distinct look and feel. The version that resonated most with the client featured a dynamic carousel element. This specific feature was a challenge to build in Figma. I followed several tutorials and spent extra time troubleshooting, but once I had the idea in mind, I was determined to see it through.
After locking in the general style and direction for the homepage, I expanded the Figma file to include mobile designs and additional page layouts. My goal was to create a flexible system that felt consistent across devices while maintaining the visual identity we had established. The Figma file became the foundation for the site’s final design and served as a reference point throughout development.
Coding and Development
For this project, I used custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to bring key interactive elements of the website to life, including the carousel and a set of custom cards. While I have a working knowledge of front-end development, I also relied on AI tools throughout the process to support and accelerate problem-solving. Coding with AI is a different experience than traditional coding. It requires a step-by-step approach, where each issue is tackled one at a time. Rather than expecting a perfect solution from the start, I focused on guiding the AI through isolated problems, working through each language individually to ensure consistency and functionality.
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The homepage carousel was particularly complex. I needed it to be fully responsive and function smoothly on both desktop and mobile devices. As I troubleshot layout issues, fixing one part of the code often introduced new challenges in another. But through careful iteration and testing, I was able to build a carousel that not only matched the vision laid out in my Figma design but exceeded it in functionality and style thanks to additional CSS enhancements.
I also created a custom card section near the bottom of the homepage. The default cards available in WordPress Bakery lacked flexibility and visual interactivity, so I designed and built three new cards from scratch. These cards are visually dynamic, respond to hover actions, and can easily be customized with new images and text. By choosing to code these elements myself, I ensured that the final result felt more engaging and aligned with the brand’s personality.
Full site Launch
When I first joined the Earthman Soil project, the website had no search engine optimization in place. The business owner was unfamiliar with how SEO worked and assumed search visibility was automatic. I explained that without strategically implemented keywords, optimized URLs, metadata, and alt text, the site would likely remain invisible to search engines. From that point forward, I took full ownership of the site’s SEO strategy.
Starting from a baseline SEO score of zero, I conducted competitive research and identified high intent key phrases that aligned with Earthman Soil’s offerings and mission. I determined that “organic living soil” would be the core focus keyword and began integrating it across page content, headings, product descriptions, image alt tags, and button labels. I also ensured URLs followed clean, readable structures, and that each image on the site was not only visually relevant but semantically tagged for both SEO and accessibility.
Through consistent targeted optimization and detailed attention to on page SEO practices, I raised the homepage SEO score from 0 to 80. This significantly improved the site’s visibility and laid the groundwork for long term growth in organic traffic. The results were immediate as the site began appearing in relevant searches, helping Earthman Soil gain a stronger foothold in a niche market with minimal advertising spend.
Conclusion
Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my case study. I truly appreciate your interest. Be sure to explore my other projects, including Cosmix Brew, a brand I built entirely from scratch, as well as the other sections of my site.
This project pushed me to grow in a lot of ways. I strengthened my coding skills and picked up new ones, like coding with AI, working in WordPress and WPBakery, and diving deep into SEO research. I also gained hands-on experience with backend tools and the consumer side of web development. The countless LinkedIn Learnings and YouTube tutorials I went through were all worth it. In the end, I launched a site that still works beautifully, and I am incredibly proud of the result.
