48North and Blok Design

For their latest project, Blok Design has teamed up with 48North, a women-led cannabis company, to create a brand identity that would showcase the direction and philosophy of the company.

48North is reimagining the cannabis landscape for women, while at the same time challenging conceptions about the plant. According to their website, 48North is focused on building a portfolio of iconic, engaging cannabis brands, innovative products and educational experiences.

“This brand is essentially about rethinking the relationship we have with cannabis and expanding the way we relate to it,” says Vanessa Eckstein, founder and CD of Blok, in a release.

One way in which they are doing this is through Latitude, a communication platform created to share the stories of women who use cannabis for health and wellness purposes. Latitude highlights and celebrates these experiences and was one of the main focuses of Blok’s design.

“The language that was created for 48North and Latitude came from the obstacles we encountered throughout the process,” says Eckstein. Because of the changing nature of packaging design for cannabis and cannabis products, the team at Blok had to “rethink how [they] insinuate, photograph movement, illustrate and paint an emotion versus a plant,” she says.

However, this turned out to be a positive obstacle. “We had so many constraints that it made us really explore alternative solutions and ended up giving the identity a unique sense of self through the brush strokes and the illustrations we created in house,” says Eckstein.

The result is a sophisticated publication that focuses on the women it serves. The details draw readers to the stories inside. The colour palette of beige, pink, green and orange gives it an elevated look, something far from the typical stoner trope.

Along with Latitude, the Blok team also designed business cards, post cards and packaging for boxes and even designed a line of products, the first being ‘Grace,’ a white pipe. “There is never anything more inspiring than when we explore faraway from the expected,” says Eckstein.

-Sabrina Gamrot