In January 2021, I joined the team at 48North as Creative Director. Under the careful eyes of folks like Kirsten Gautier and Genevieve Beharry — with help from incredible agencies like Blok and Public Office — the brand portfolio was full of stand-outs in a crowded and often undifferentiated market.
High time for a little change.
We gave the 48North brand a super light-touch evolution to help make it feel a just a bit less precious visually while adjusting the overall tone to more openly engage the sophisticated stoner vibes that were always part of the brand's way of being.
No cann do.
In the cannabis space, there is more that you're not allowed to do than you are allowed to do in terms of brand expression. It can be annoying but it also forces us to find creative ways to do impactful work in the places we can. So, here's some of that work.
48North Cannabis Corp.
48North was rapidly becoming a house of brands, so we took a look at how a parent brand would emerge so that we may communicate business directives without complicating the messaging surrounding individual product brand expressions.
We wanted to develop a wordmark that embraced some visual elements of the current brand in market, but would allow larger corporate endeavours to stand apart from the consumer brand.
Our natural inclination was to employ a graphic approach that was familiar, but slightly more restrained in its overall expression.
Large blocks of colour and textural duotone imagery were used to create a strong visual framework for corporate communications which can tend to be a bit... you know.
What? The investor class doesn’t like pretty things? I think we were pretty successful in building a parent brand that felt strong and trustworthy without losing sight of who we were — as a brand and as people.
BRAND
48North
TEAM
Creative Director Matt Rennick
Design Director Genevieve Beharry
Brand Director Nadine De Albuquerque
I think we might have made that parent brand a little too sexy. In May of 2021, it was announced that 48North was to be acquired and, for better or for worse, the rest is history.
Say hello.
I am currently living and working as a Creative Director in Toronto for Huge. I'm always open to riding new waves so if you've got something in mind, let's get pitted. So pitted.