Asparagus / Lăstar – A Harvest Branding System

Lăstar is a brand identity project that proposes a documentation-based language system for seasonal harvest, replacing promotional communication claims with recorded harvest data in order to reposition freshness as an observable condition rather than a marketing attribute.

Lăstar
“This ASPARAGUS is not sold, it’s catalogued.”

Problem
Fresh produce such as asparagus is typically sold as a seasonal commodity where quality and freshness are communicated through persuasive packaging claims rather than verifiable growing conditions. In retail environments, short harvesting windows, rapid post-harvest degradation and batch variability make it difficult for small-scale producers to meaningfully differentiate their product beyond price or promotional language.

As a result, care becomes abstracted into marketing slogans, and freshness is declared rather than evidenced. The processes that directly influence product quality as harvest time, origin point or growing conditions, remain invisible, reinforcing the perception of asparagus as an undifferentiated consumable rather than a time-sensitive agricultural product.

Solution
Lăstar introduces a visual identity system that repositions asparagus from a mass-market commodity to a catalogued agricultural specimen by replacing promotional language with recorded information. Drawing from the visual and linguistic codes of institutional archiving, the identity communicates freshness through documentation rather than persuasion.

Each harvest is treated as a verifiable entry: classification, time-stamping and origin data become central identity components, allowing growing conditions and product care to be observed rather than claimed. Geometric graphic elements derived from the logotype’s cutting lines function as temporal markers, with orientation and density reflecting the passage of time across the harvesting cycle.

By shifting communication from advertising to documentation, the system transforms freshness into an observable fact and positions the producer as an accountable cultivator. Within this framework, asparagus is no longer presented as an endlessly available retail good, but as a seasonal, time-bound product whose value is defined by recorded conditions of growth and harvest.