Finding the mark: from generic leaves to a rooted community

A logo has to do two jobs. It has to be instantly recognizable at the size of a favicon. It also has to feel like the product the first time you see it. Most marks get the first job and miss the second. With a coaching product, that gap shows.

The Grove mark went through three honest tries before it earned its shape.

Phase 1: three basic leaves.

Phase 1: three stylized leaves arranged over a gentle curve. Critique callout: "Too simple. It looked like generic wellness clip-art."

Three growing leaves over a gentle curve. Clean, calm, and indistinguishable from every other wellness brand. The instant a designer or a coach saw it, the response was the same: this is the leaf you see on a bottle of supplements. It was too simple to do the second job. Coaching is not generic, and a generic mark can’t feel like it.

Phase 2: a literal sapling.

Phase 2: a cartoon tree mascot with a face, wearing a red and white running tank with the number 42. Critique callout: "Too literal, too cute. It looked like a homework planner for kids, not a serious tool for coaches."

The overcorrection was to give the tree a personality. An actual face. An actual outfit. The intent was warmth. The result was a children’s mascot in a 5K bib. It was hard to argue with as a sketch and impossible to ship next to a coach’s headshot.

Both of those phases failed for the same reason. The metaphor was being asked to do the work, not the mark. A leaf isn’t coaching. A cartoon tree isn’t coaching either. We had to earn the metaphor instead of forcing it.

Phase 3: a grounded, growing tree.

Phase 3: the shipped Grove mark, a tree with a full leafy crown above a trunk and deep visible roots, rendered in cream on a dark slate background. Caption reads "A grounded, growing tree. It finally feels like the right shape for a logo to take."

The third version is what shipped. A tree with a full crown of leaves, a short trunk, and roots that show. Two things about it are doing real work:

The leaves are a community. A grove is not a single tree. It is a collection of them. Each leaf in the crown is a relationship, which is what a coach’s roster actually is.

The roots are visible. This is the part I am most attached to. Most of coaching happens between sessions, in the work below the surface. A tree without roots is a houseplant. A coaching practice without the work between sessions is the same.

The mark is small now. It sits in the corner of the app and on this page. I notice it most when a coach sends a note about their week and the tree is sitting quietly above it, looking like the product feels.

A logo’s first job is to be recognizable. Its second job is to feel like the product the first time you see it. A leafy crown and roots that show. That ended up being it.

Written by

Beth Richardson

Founder of Grove. Twenty years building software for skilled professionals. Currently writes mostly on Tuesdays from a small studio in Austin.

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