A worthy challenge

Okay let's talk about great concepts with true insight into the mary jane culture. I stumbled across this on a friends facebook page. I'm a sucker for good package design and love love love what these top four companies came up with.

So Print Magazine asks the following: what if pot is legalized-- how should it be branded?

"The Heads of State, a Philadelphia duo comprising Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers, wanted to stick with the illicit connotations of the drug--pointing out that to eliminate that bad-boy rep is to do a disservice to the product (and it's various brand connotations). So they kept the whole "bag of weed" concept, and branded the various strains with goofy sticker"



"Strømme Throndsen, an Olso firm that won the 2009 Award for Design Excellence for its flour packaging, produced the design strategy most likely to make it to the real world: Their packaging concept is modular, with a big box containing smaller packages, so that the user need only take whatever they need with them. Inside, the invididual cases could be branded to suit different demographics--which, by the looks of it, would include a red-eyed Apple designer and Paris Hilton"



"The New York office of Base worked with its branches in Europe, to create a goofy nod towards weed's illegal past, with containers made from repurposed packaging from other brands--in other words, a reference to the stash boxes ubitquitous in dorm rooms all over the country"



"Lust, a graphic design practice in Amsterdam, tackled the controversy of the product head-on---albeit in a very dry, very arch manner. They opted to cover the package in infographics about weed, and its effects--which they claim would create an anti-brand brand, and also, presumably, turn the product into something more neutral than the demon weed. The only stoner reference is the Jamaican & Rastafarian color theme"