The short answer:
I walked into a cannabis store for the first time ever and it was nothing like I expected. So naturally I designed a cannabis brand and website to match.
Every September, I fall for the same lie: that I need to reinvent myself.
So I rebranded, launched a new website, started a second Instagram, and spent a good chunk of my days crying because all three of my kids were finally in school.
Then October hit, and I started designing just for fun. Cannabis Dreams is one of those projects: a cannabis brand design and website concept I created with no client, no brief and no deadline. It’s just me, flexing a creative muscle I’d forgotten I had.
Where the idea came from
Where the idea came from
The spark (pun intended) came from a summer trip to Friday’s Cannabis in PEC. It was our first visit to a dispensary, and my husband and I asked one of the women working there what she’d recommend to take the edge off daily life. The experience felt warm, curious and nothing like the stereotype. I wanted to design a brand that felt the same way.
The cannabis brand design
Some of my best work comes when I don’t feel the pressure of a deadline - when it’s Friday night - I have a glass of wine in hand and I get the itch to just try a concept simmering in my head. When I design for clients I have a list of shoulds in my brain. When I design for myself - those all fly out the window. I wanted this cannabis brand design to feel dreamy and modern rather than leafy and expected - sort of like stepping into a digital Friday’s Cannabis (the store designed by Christine Flynn - so of course it just oozes aesthetics).
The Cannabis Dreams website design
My concept for this Squarespace website was to lead with emotion: the feeling, an unexpected layout and a cheeky use of “//”. The fonts felt just on the safe side of trendy - not diving into the zone where I will tire of them by them time the site goes live - but just enough to lean into the newness of cannabis as a widely available consumer product (at least here in Ottawa). I kept the colours entirely non existent - opting for a soft cream background and allowing curated photography to inject personality into the website.
Why designers need passion projects
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
— Harold Whitman
I read those words in Frequency by Penney Peirce, a book I bought on impulse at Indigo and then left on our credenza for two years. They landed at exactly the right time. I’d spent years designing for clients, brand campaigns and everyone else, and I’d never asked myself what I’d design just for me.
It turns out creativity is a muscle that needs to be flexed differently. When friends asked what I planned to do with Cannabis Dreams, I loved telling them the truth: nothing. It was just for me.
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