Role

Creative Director

Skills

Branding, Typography, Logo Design, Design Production

Background

This project was my capstone project. Using benchmarking and creative exploration I wanted to bring a medical marijuana & CBD company to life. I was inspired by the rising popularity of cannabis industry and was uninspired by the designs I started to see on display. The name came from a conversation with my brother. He said “Dude if we moved out to California, bought a farm, and opened a business, that would be so hype.” And with that, Sohyped was born.

Goal

Brand a medical cannabis company to create an engaging, unique persona that can stand out in the marijuana industry.

Early Exploration

Research

I began by exploring brand personas to find the right look, tone, and feel for Sohyped. My target audience were young adult patients that were looking for alternatives to addictive pain pills. I also benchmarked companies in the marijuana industry and brands from other industries that I found bold and engaging. These visual contents helped with my conversations with Sohyped’s investors (aka the group of volunteers I tested my design pitch on. They were handsomely rewarded with pizza afterwards.) Here are some insights I discovered while researching.

1.    My audience is cautious of using addictive prescription drugs for pain relief and rely on weaker, over-the-counter alternatives that are designed to dull common pains.

2.    With the rise of marijuana legalization, many patients are now looking towards medical marijuana and CBD for pain relief. While there are several companies that now supply these products, many of them rely on the same imagery of the “pot leaf” or medical icons in their branding.

3.    Sohyped wants their name to be the focal point of their branding. It’s a reference to the founding of the company and the promise they want to make to their customers.

From this exploration I decided to focus on a typographic logo and simple yet bold branding to support it as a unique medical marijuana and CBD company that can stand out in its industry.

Design Sprint 1

The first design sprint was dedicated to the typographic logo. I searched numerous font libraries including Typekit, Monotype, and Google Fonts. I was drawn to the boldness of Industry Inc with it’s industrial look. I saw it as modern and a strong contrast to other typefaces being used in the marijuana industry.

Design Sprint 2

With the logo finalized, I shifted my focus to the color and overall branding that would support it. Sohyped has two categories of products: THC and CBD. I decided to explore shades of green for THC to represent the naturally grown marijuana plant that it comes from. CBD, being just an extract from marijuana, would be represented by a shade of blue to link it back to the relaxing, calming, pain reliving properties the CBD products can provide. Once I found the right shades, I began building out the branding guidelines for Sohyped’s “team” to review.

Takeaways

Creating a company’s brand from scratch was fun and taught me a lot about marketing research. Establishing persona and pinpointing ways to target my audience help me understand how to integrate a company’s personality into its imagery.  

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