New York Botanical Garden
A global audience boost for a renowned cultural institution
Crosscut Studio worked with the New York Botanical Garden to design and produce a series of online gardening courses called Plant Studio. Our work helped NYBG refresh its reputation, attract a wider audience, and create a foundation for future course creation.
The Client
The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is one of the most well-regarded botanical gardens in the world, with over a million visitors a year. It is also a major educational institution, teaching visitors about plant science, ecology, and healthy eating through interactive programming.
A recognition gap: While well-known for its beautiful gardens, NYBC has been under-recognized for its groundbreaking educational programs and scientific research.
Time for a refresh: The organization had several pandemic-era online courses that were put together quickly in a time of urgency.
Limited audience: Course users tended to skew older and were largely located in the New York City area.
Process problems: NYBG had a lack of defined processes around how to upgrade existing courses and create new ones in the future.
Overwhelmed staff: The NYBG team felt overwhelmed by their ambitious digital course goals, unsure of how to proceed.
The Challenge
The Outcomes
Course design and production: In collaboration with the client, we designed and produced a suite of five online courses called Plant Studio, an online self-paced plant education program. This included researching learners’ needs, the subject matter of the five proposed courses, competitors’ offerings, and available resources for the project.
Brand system development: We created a brand system for the new courses that worked in harmony with the NYBG design language. The Crosscut team delivered documents, production guidelines, templates, and course guides, and trained NYBG team members on how to use them.
Video production management: We sourced and led the video production of two full courses including pre-production, production, and post-production. Post-production processes included leading reviews, addressing feedback, and creating all graphics related to videos.
Implementation guidance: Crosscut produced a series of documents, templates, and processes that equipped NYBG to take on the next stage of Plant Studio forward after the project ended.
The Impact
A new global audience: Now diverse home gardeners around the world can access top-tier expertise and advice on horticulture, gardening, pruning, floral design, and landscape architecture, as well as share experiences with fellow gardeners.
Reputation refresh: The new courses highlight the organization’s unmatched expertise in the area of plant studies, while also capturing the beauty and sense of timelessness embodied by NYBG.
A foundation for the future: Our work on Plant Studios has provided a process and methodology for the creation of future courses. Our experience in creating online learning products for cultural institutions enabled us to create models and sources of inspiration for the courses that NYBG planned to produce after our contract ended.