MJBizMag August 2022 - 42

DEFINE YOUR BRAND
LOGO CHEAT SHEET
10 do's and don'ts when building a cannabis logo and putting it on merch
By Kristen Nichols
S
o, you're starting a cannabis brand but don't have
a glitzy marketing team or a fat budget. And your
design skills don't match your cannabis expertise.
Now you need a logo that doesn't look like it was drawn by
your cousin.
You've got this! After all, you've already started a cannabis
company in the face of incredible legal and financing
obstacles. Consider logo design the next step on your path to
becoming a self-made cannabis mogul.
It's just like teaching yourself accounting or extraction.
You do it by learning from the pros. We gathered 10 do's and
don'ts for logo design from some of the cannabis industry's
branding leaders. Consider this your DIY cheat sheet for a
logo that stands out (in a good way).
Restart CBD opted for a red and
white logo instead of green.
Courtesy Photo
DON'T: Default to a leaf
Cannabis consumers are barraged by so many leafy logos
that few of them stand out.
" I'm tired of all the green, " said Shayda Torabi, CEO of
Restart CBD in Austin, Texas. " The green lettering. The
green backgrounds. The very explicit leaf. It's all been done.
If you want to attract new customers, think outside the box. "
Prince's cannabis marketing company started with a
leafy logo in green, but eventually she dropped the leaf and
switched to IBM blue. She wanted a logo that could go on the
side of a building in her company's small town.
" I didn't want to offend the community that I was doing
business in, " she said.
DO: Create a vision board
Vision boards might seem like self-help hogwash, but
they're invaluable tools used by the most experienced
branding pros.
How do you want your brand to make people feel? Hip?
Healthy? Sophisticated? Fun-loving? Start collecting images
that give you that feeling. (A digital vision board is fine; no
need to cut magazines to ribbons.)
Look for colors and patterns that keep turning up in the
images you choose and consider them your starting points.
" When we think about the definition of brand, it's the
unconscious decision or conclusion that a customer is
reaching about your product. It's your core value and
your vision, " said Kim Prince, founder of Proven Media, a
cannabis marketing consultancy in Carefree, Arizona.
42 August 2022 | MJBizMagazine
DO: Use the leaf when it works
No design rule is absolute.
Even as branding experts
advise not defaulting to the
cannabis leaf, they say it's still
a powerful symbol that can fit
some brands perfectly.
Nicole Kennebeck,
marketing director for Willie's
Reserve, a cannabis brand
with no leaf in its logo, pointed out that brands shouldn't
immediately rule out its use. There is a reason, she said,
that people don't put tea or oak leaves on T-shirts.
" There's power in that symbol, " she said. " When it's
appropriate, it can be a strong message in signaling culture
and community. "
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