NAMING, IDENTITY, BUSINESS CARD DESIGN

The Gill Family had been in the liquor and grocery distribution business for more than 30 years when they decided to make the leap to marijuana. With the shift from liquor to cannabis, the new business was in need of a new identity. I wanted to create a brand that spoke to the family’s long history of logistics and shipping know-how. It would need to be versatile enough to expand beyond distribution and create a sense of history, quality, transparency, and discovery. The Manifest co-founders, I included, started with the name: Manifest. In distribution, manifest describes a document that details a vessel’s contents. It can also be used as an adjective to describe something that is clear or apparent. As a verb it means “to display or show (a quality or feeling) by one's acts or appearance.” Most recently, it’s been used to describe a way to will one’s desires into being. 

With a name that fit the family’s history and future ambitions, I turned to the logo. After a focused type exploration, I honed in on a vintage-inspired design that felt substantial enough to represent the family’s decades of service and that honored the new industry. The metallic gold finish and diamond imagery used here give the brand a feeling of luxury, quality, and abundance.

This design and the branding for The Grass Agency won a 2019 GD USA award for cannabis design.

Credits:

• Naming & Graphic Design: Reena Karia

• Photography: The Grass Agency (Reena Karia & Christopher Trout)

• San Francisco Bay Image: Creative Commons