It’s encouraging to to see an increase in eco-friendly products on the market, especially since consumers love choices. Today we are exposed to more product options and, consequently, more eco-shopping outlets as well. PlentyWays is an online shopping outlet for all things green. Product categories include Home, Office, Off-Grid Living, Gadgets, Energy Monitors, and Apparel. At this point, the selection of products on the site is too sparse. Each product category is filled, but with very little depth. The store is newly established, so the limited selection is forgivable at this point. But PlentyWays will need to rapidly populate its product pool if it hopes to compete with the more well established e-commerce sites. After all, BuyGreen, a previous Leaf of the Day, is much further along in development than PlentyWays and even it was criticized for lack of product options.
I know better than to dismiss a new company before it gets off and running. So let’s keep an eye on PlentyWays and see if it’s the site that one day carries the banner for eco-shopping.
The name, PlentyWays, stems from the slogan, “Plenty Ways to make a difference…” It has some grammatical issues, but the phrase ties the name immediately to a mission, which happens to be more about educating shoppers than simply offering products. This half of the identity seems pretty solid, the logo on the other hand is less so. Word to the wise, make your logo look as little like clip art as you can. Things like outlines, shadows and glow in this case make the logo feel fabricated and unnatural. Attempts at being trendy, sleek and modern come off as cheap design parlor tricks. With that said, I’m intrigued by the symbol. I’ve not seen many leaf logos, outside the landscaping industry, that commit to the dirt and soil convention. Here it invokes the idea of fresh, broken ground, which speaks to the newness of PlentyWays. Not to mention that freshly turned soil could be representative of planting, growing and new life. Overall I think the symbol in the logo has the potential to communicate the enterprising mindset that PlentyWays is interested in. But first some of the logo’s bells and whistles need to be peeled back.