The John Deere Harvester Works Visitor Center brings the facility’s history and present-day work into one environment. As lead graphic designer, I developed signage, wall graphics and dimensional brand elements that built on the center’s established character while introducing Deere’s current visual identity.
The approach connected archival imagery, warm neutrals and Corten tones with contemporary graphic treatments and deliberate accents of Deere green.
The John Deere Harvester Works Visitor Center already carried a strong sense of history through archival imagery, warm materials and industrial detail. Rather than remake the space, the refresh needed to introduce current equipment and brand expression while preserving the character that made it feel rooted in place.
As lead graphic designer, I developed a visual system that could adapt across large-format signage, wall graphics and dimensional elements. Coordinated image treatments, restrained typography and a warm neutral palette helped each addition feel connected to the surrounding architecture and materials. Large, fabricated "Est. 1912" merges the two, enriching previously bare, long hallway.
Deere green was used deliberately rather than decoratively. Concentrated around equipment, key messages and moments of brand recognition, it draws the present into focus while allowing the facility’s history to remain the foundation.
The goal was not to separate past from present, but to make them feel like parts of the same story.
The finished environment feels unmistakably Deere without appearing like a new identity layered over an old space. Historic content, current equipment and the existing architecture work together as one continuous experience, connecting where Harvester Works has been with the work still happening there today.
Art direction, graphic design: Grant Swanson
Industrial design and fabrication collaborators: Edwards Creative
