Two scientists collecting data in a field on Rodale Institute's farm
historic photo of Rodale performing research in a field

Rodale Institute

Organic Before it was Cool

Rodale Institute has been on a mission to take regenerative agriculture mainstream since 1947. In fact, their founder popularized the term “organic farming.” They’ve worked tirelessly to raise awareness, pioneer research, and advocate for organics—with great success. But when the organic industry finally took off, Rodale Institute was left in its wake.

Services Provided

Infantree's lead strategy team analyzing information for brand positioning

Getting to the Root of the Problem

In early 2018, Rodale’s website had ballooned to hundreds of pages. It was a challenge to edit and maintain. And it wasn’t mobile friendly—a huge source of frustration. While we could have resolved these issues and called it a day, instead we helped Rodale understand that recalibrating their brand was more important than polishing up their website.

custom icons created by Infantree representing science, farming, and education

Many Messages, One Brand Story

Rodale has so many crucial ideas to share with the world. But you can’t shout all your messages at once and expect to be understood. 

We developed a unified brand story that could inspire and engage all of their audiences. From farmers to scientists to board members, we listened to anyone who would talk. Our research uncovered the messages they connect with, the programs that keep them engaged, and the values that motivate them to support Rodale’s work.

bubbles of personas created to guide the strategy of serving Rodale Institute's many audiences

Rodale Institute is growing the organic movement through research, farmer training, and consumer education.
Because the future is organic.

gallery of images: farmer working with open range chickens, scientist measuring organic plant growth

Bringing It All Together

With over one million annual visitors and a lot to convey, the new site needed to thoughtfully integrate content, design, and UX in order to be intuitive to use. We began with a thorough SEO audit to prioritize the most important content throughout the site. Using audience personas, we worked through many sitemap iterations, eventually landing on a simple structure that made content super easy to find.

Screenshot of the Rodale Institute home page

Flexible, Maintainable, and Ready for the Future

We knew the Rodale team had dealt with years of maintenance challenges, so we equipped them with a flexible content template for creating unique-yet-consistent pages. They’re able to easily add landing pages for special events, update content, add donation forms that integrate with their CRM, and manage blog categories and tags.

Support At Every Step

We continue to help Rodale with some of their larger projects—like Grow Clean Water, an initiative to help more people understand the link between farming practices and water quality. Our team worked with Rodale to name the project, set a visual direction, build a microsite, and develop marketing assets.

Grow Clean Water website design by Infantree with colorful illustrations and blog articles
Grow Clean Water website design by Infantree with colorful illustrations and fun facts
Grow Clean Water website design by Infantree with colorful illustrations and video elements
collection of print pieces designed for Rodale Institute by Infantree

From conception to launch, I could not be more impressed with the process the Infantree team guided us through to get to the end result. We cannot thank them enough for their outstanding work.

Jeff Tkach

Chief Growth Officer at Rodale Institute