Get {And Enjoy} Your Daily Dose of Trees
MN DNR Arbor Month Celebrations
Art Direction and Design

PROJECT DETAILS
Minnesota DNR’s Arbor Month 2016 goal was to educate the public about “the health benefits of trees.” Traditionally, the MN DNR selects a “host city” for its Arbor Month Celebration events and festivities. Given the theme, Rochester, Minnesota, home of the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, was a natural choice as the host city.
THEME GRAPHIC
The project began by creating a theme graphic that could be easily incorporated across media platforms to promote Arbor Month 2016. Because the main target audience focus was on kids, their parents, schools and school nurses, we kept the design clean and simple, child-like, easy to read tree shapes with “parent and child” enjoying their natural surroundings.
While the overarching theme focuses on the “Health Benefits of Trees,” the theme itself would benefit having a catchphrase or tagline to make it more memorable. Brainstorming sessions were conducted to flush out possible phrases to match the Arbor Month’s campaign’s theme. Given the style of the theme graphic, rhyming lines made the final cut.
WEB BANNER
For the MN DNR website banner promoting the Arbor Month Celebration, we chose to overlay the theme graphic on a relatable image of a tree-lined park pathway. Visually, it says how accessible the benefits trees provide are just by visiting a neighborhood park.
THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF TREES INFOGRAPHIC
As a fun, educational tool and poster, we designed an infographic with a tree as the focal point with icons representing each specific benefit trees provide. Infographic was sent to schools as part of an educational Arbor Month kit for teachers to use in their classrooms. To get the most outreach to key audiences, we repurposed the tree benefits from the infographic into a series of fun social media memes for posting on Facebook and Twitter. (See samples below)
DELIVERABLES
Theme Graphic
Press Release Stationery
Web and Social Banners
Infographic Poster
Retractable Display Banner
Social Memes 2016:
(Facebook & Twitter)
Social Memes 2017:
(#31DaysOfTrees Challenge)
ABOUT MN DNR
“The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources works to integrate and sustain the interdependent values of a healthy environment, a sustainable economy, and livable communities. DNR’s integrated resource management strategy shares stewardship responsibility with citizens and partners to manage for multiple interests.” Read more about the DNR >
View Site: Minnesota DNR



HEALTH BENEFITS OF TREES SOCIAL MEMES
Taking each health benefit and turning it into a social meme to post on Facebook and Twitter expanded educational reach beyond the printed infographic poster. Images and alternatives were selected to pair with each health benefit and corresponding health icon. Images were chosen for relevancy, appeal and humor. Below: Social Meme adapted for MN DNR’s Twitter feed.
Select Social Memes from the MN DNR Arbor Month Campaign 2017
While many of the materials were updated and repurposed from the “Health Benefits of Trees” 2016 campaign, the focus of the Health Benefits of Trees” 2017 campaign was to engage and build a millennial audience using social media as a major component. Creating a “31 Days of Trees Challenge” competition encouraged a hard to reach millennial audience to go and enjoy a daily dose of trees by photographing and posting their own tree experiences and stories. Below is a selection of Facebook memes (promoted posts and ads) that ran through out the campaign.
ABOVE: Case study showcasing the results of the #31DaysOfTrees Challenge.




This project was in creative collaboration with MP+G Marketing Solutions who provided the communications plan and strategy, key messages and client management. Grand Ciel Design provided art direction, concepts, design, print and web production, project management intermixed with curiosity and fascination. We will never look at trees the same way again.