Persona-Driven Visuals: Elevating TerraCycle’s Recycling Solutions Online
TerraCycle offers a wide variety of paid recycling solutions—Zero Waste Boxes, collection buckets, and bags—tailored to nearly every type of hard-to-recycle waste stream. Despite their central role in the business, these products were visually under-supported. Thumbnails on our e-commerce site were generic and outdated, often relying on a single “Choose Your Waste” sticker and stock photography that didn’t inspire confidence.
As TerraCycle’s focus shifted from free recycling programs to these revenue-driving solutions, it became clear that our visuals weren’t communicating the expertise, credibility, or care that the brand represents. Customers had no way of seeing the diversity of waste streams we could handle—from art supplies to dental retainers—and weren’t being reassured that their waste would be responsibly managed.
Shortly after completing a rebrand that brought Zero Waste Boxes fully under the TerraCycle master brand, I identified an opportunity to revamp our product imagery—particularly e-commerce thumbnails. What began as a personal initiative evolved into a strategic project when our CEO encouraged me to extend the same clarity and credibility we were building on labels to the entire online experience.
The goals were to:
Align all product visuals with refreshed brand guidelines.
Showcase realistic, specific waste imagery across all product types.
Reflect the personas of our customers (D2C and B2B).
Build a scalable system that could handle hundreds of SKUs without overwhelming the creative team.
