Behind The Work: Logo and Apparel Design for Upland Orchard

Behind The Work is an in-depth exploration of the thought process and reasoning—good and bad—that goes into some of our favorite projects.

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The Task at Hand

In the middle of the summer, I was contacted by James Smith to design a logo and apparel for his company, Upland Orchard, an apple orchard farm and cidery based in Saluda, NC. After spending childhood years visiting his grandma's orchard in the northern part of the states, James and his wife purchased Upland Orchard in 2020, during the height of the global pandemic caused by COVID-19. Although the risk was high due to the economic crisis created by the pandemic, the aspirations and belief in this dream were higher, with goals of creating a space that was part cidery and taproom, part orchard farm for apple picking, part event space, and part bed and breakfast.

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The Creative Direction

After our initial conversations, I found it important to James that the branding for Upland Orchard represented all of his aspirations for it. Upland Orchard needed to be family-friendly and welcoming, but not a tourist trap. It had to feel artisanal and handcrafted without being stuffy. It needed to evoke the community while also standing on its own. Most importantly, it needed to represent James, his family, and the land.

His long-term goals for Upland Orchard are bold, as previously mentioned, but the immediate need was to have people visiting, picking apples, becoming familiar with what Upland Orchard was, and to generate income from all of that. James was drawn to woodcut art and classic designs with a touch of nostalgia. He also touched on the game land and bird hunting meaning behind the term, upland, and how he had an English Setter, a dog known for its hunting prowess, that had recently passed.

With all of this information, I set out to create a mood board that I thought would fit the direction we were leaning towards.

In our onboarding conversation, James mentioned linking the branding of Jeter Mountain Farm, an orchard and cidery just a short distance from his location. Because of James's long-term goals for Upland Orchard, I thought it best to avoid the standard look associated with many cider breweries and go with something more distinguished. I was inspired by the classic look of wine labels and bringing that aesthetic into the cider space. I also wanted to keep the woodcut art style that James mentioned because it spoke so well to the "handcrafted without being stuffy" look that we talked about. I also found inspiration in old, hand-drawn recipe books and cards, and thought that might evoke a nostalgic feeling that felt welcoming to all.

I also wanted to incorporate a nod to his dog, and in looking for inspiration that spoke to the game land meaning of upland, I honed in on a cardinal because its shape, and clearly its color, resembles an apple. Ultimately, those two ideas weren't explored, but everything else within the moodboard hit the points we wanted to touch on, and we decided to move towards a design that combined the woodcut art style and wine label aesthetic.

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The Design

With a direction chosen, I set out to create the logo. In building a logo that we wanted to be recognizable to the point of becoming an icon in Saluda as Upland Orchard grew, we found it imperative to include something from the orchard itself. James suggested a barn that would be used as part of the orchard's operations, and he sent me multiple photos of that barn. I settled on a photo that best represented the potential of Upland Orchard, and created the logo from that.

Barn located on the property of Upland Orchard

My process for creating the logo from the photo of the barn began with my printing out the image and using tracing paper to sketch out a number of different looks that I thought would serve our desired outcome. I mimicked the woodcut chisel style, incorporating it into different sections of the barn to find where it felt most natural. After doing this for a while with mixed results, I had an idea come to me. What if I could achieve this look in Illustrator by using the live trace tool, refining the settings, then creating the woodcut look by manipulating the tracing result and adding chisel brushstrokes? That's precisely what I did.

The live trace gave me a good base from which to start. I removed sections and filled in others, all to simplify the look and better represent what a woodcut piece of the barn would look like. I then created the word mark, giving it a distinctive U and O that could be used as a recognizable monogram. With the logo finalized, the last thing to do was create merchandise like a shirt and hoodie that could easily be produced and sold.

The results were a logo that not only aligned with our vision but also was unique and spoke to the values of what Upland Orchard is and would become. This logo can grow with Upland Orchard. While the iconography of the barn and monogram aren't readily recognizable at this point, as visitors flock to Upland Orchard and its reputation grows as a destination for family fun and events, those icons will become synonymous with Upland Orchard and the greater Western North Carolina region.

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Final Thoughts

This project highlighted how easy a job could be when there's clear, purposeful, and thoughtful communication at the forefront of every decision before anything is even designed. James laid out all of his ideas concisely, and we spoke through our thoughts and choices, resulting in very little back and forth being needed. After a couple of minor changes to the initial proof, approval came quickly.

While this feels like a finished job, I also feel as though we're just getting started in building what the Upland Orchard brand can be, and I look forward to working with James again and seeing the growth.