One app, three ways it could look, sound and move.
Every phone below shows the same Saturday morning in a Brunswick East plot, so you compare identity rather than content. Tap the crops, drag the dial, press the buttons. Turn sound on first; each direction has its own voice.
Direction A · recommended
Rootwork. Everything you grow is connected to someone who needs it.
The brief is a chain, so the identity shows the network under the soil. Thin roots grow between your crops and your neighbours' requests. A match is two roots meeting, and you hear it land.
- Colour
- Committed. Beetroot carries the brand, chlorophyll lime marks every live match. White ground tinted toward beet.
- Type
- Bricolage Grotesque (display, optical sizes) with Atkinson Hyperlegible for UI, built for reading in full sun.
- Form
- Organic instrument. Radii 6 / 12 / pill, 1px hairlines, depth by tone. Root strokes replace dividers.
- Motion
- Roots draw in, nodes pulse on a match, a seed sprouts while things load.
- Sound
- Every crop has a note on a kalimba-like pentatonic scale. A match resolves two notes into a chord.
- Beetroot
0.42 0.15 355 - Deep beet
0.26 0.09 355 - Chlorophyll
0.89 0.19 125 - Ground
0.985 0.006 355 - Root
0.62 0.09 355
The match web
Your silverbeet, the four people nearby who asked for it.
Loading, as a seed
Replaces the spinner everywhere in the app.
Morning, Priya.
19° and sunny · no frost until TuesdayAisha (Fitzroy North) and Tom (Brunswick) asked this week. Pickup at the CERES shed.
Direction B
Glut. Too many zucchini is a good problem.
Australian gardeners call surplus a glut. This direction borrows from old seed packets and riso-printed garden-club newsletters: flat inks that overprint where they meet, stretched type, and every crop as a packet with its growing chart printed on the back.
- Colour
- Full palette of four inks on true white, each with a job. Tomato sells, marigold wants, cobalt is community, bean is growing.
- Type
- Anybody (variable width, stretched to 150% on mastheads) with Instrument Sans for UI.
- Form
- Sheet. Radius 2 / 4 / pill, colour bands instead of cards, no shadows, a registration-offset on hover.
- Motion
- Ink stamps on actions, a perforated packet that tears open, a slight misregistration on load.
- Sound
- Paper and print: woodblock taps, a stamp thunk, a rip when a packet opens.
- Tomato · sell
0.60 0.20 30 - Marigold · want
0.83 0.16 82 - Cobalt · community
0.47 0.18 262 - Bean · grow
0.54 0.13 150 - Press ink
0.21 0.03 262
The packet tear
Opening a listing tears the top off its seed packet.
2.4 kg · CERES shed · Sat 10 a.m.
Overprint = match
Where supply ink meets demand ink, a third colour appears.
GLUT
Sat 26.09.26Brunswick EastAbout 4.2 kg more than you'll eat. Six neighbours have asked for zucchini this month.
Direction C
Daylength. The app keeps Melbourne's time.
Gardening runs on light and season, so the whole interface does too. The ground shifts from dawn to noon to dusk, and the main control is a season dial: twelve months in a ring showing what to sow, what's growing and what's ready. Drag it to look ahead.
- Colour
- Restrained. A pale sky ground that follows the time of day, eucalyptus blue-grey ink, one sun-orange accent.
- Type
- Gloock, a high-contrast serif used only for dates and numbers, with Figtree for UI.
- Form
- Editorial instrument. Radii 4 / 10 / pill, hairlines between rows and none around content. Airy.
- Motion
- The dial turns on drag, the sun travels its arc, crops grow around the ring.
- Sound
- Soft wind-chime tones, warmer at dusk. Scrubbing the dial ticks like a clock.
- Dawn
0.95 0.025 20 - Noon
0.97 0.022 230 - Dusk
0.93 0.035 300 - Sun
0.70 0.17 50 - Eucalyptus
0.30 0.035 205
Time of day
The ground follows the sun. Text colours never move, so contrast holds.
The season dial
Drag the ring in the phone, or step it here. Each month ticks.
Early spring · 12 h 04 m of light
Side by side
All three use the same modules, data and screens. The choice decides how the product feels, how it sounds and which moment in the demo lands hardest.
| A · Rootwork | B · Glut | C · Daylength | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big idea | The network under the soil | Seed packets and riso print | The sun and the season |
| Colour | Committed: beetroot + lime | Full palette: four inks | Restrained: sky ground, one sun accent |
| Form | Organic instrument, 6/12 radii | Sheet, colour bands, 2px radii | Editorial, hairlines, airy |
| Sound | Kalimba notes per crop, chord on match | Woodblock, stamp, paper rip | Wind chimes, clock tick on dial |
| Demo moment | Surplus meets demand as roots join | Glut stamped and pre-listed | Dragging to next season's crops |
| Strongest for | Marketplace and matching (the loop) | Brand recall, younger growers | Crop tracking and what to grow |
| Watch for | Roots used as decoration | Too playful for councils and funders | Admin feels less distinct |
We recommend Rootwork. The client's own chain, people to communities to crops to demand, is a network, and this identity makes that network visible. It turns matching, the feature no competitor has, into the moment people remember. B is the most eye-catching but risks reading as a zine. C is the calmest and suits an allotment-committee audience. Elements can cross over: C's season dial works well inside A's "What should I grow?" screen.