From physical and digital products, services, and experiences to storytelling, we design unique and effective solutions for brands, people, and the planet.
We devise systems.
Green Acres
The place to be if you reside in DC and are interested in keeping Cannabis-generated money in your community. Addressing a combination of social and economic justice issues via a unique and accounting-compliant marketplace that brings together local cultivators, consumers, and the greater community.
Alphaforms helped Green Acres Lab articulate their unique digital platform through the development of the visual brand identity along with original storytelling and customer experience design.
Inspired equally by farming and patriotic themes the logo for Green Acres Lab is as robust to reproduce as it is memorable.
Green is the New Black
And by green we are speaking about a flower called Cannabis sativa. And then there is the green of cash. So this is just as much about methodically unlocking tremendous near-term future growth opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs and investors alike. The following Black Friday offering of thanks is to our past, present and future clients and is compiled as a basic conversation structure about early mistakes to avoid and successes to be had when developing your own cannabis offering. They are based on our learnings from the trenches while working on a growing range of cannabis brands in ever diverse industry and product categories as well as seasoned by several decades of experience as branders and designers at large.
The Stigma
Despite the virtually certain eventual complete legalization of cannabis in major world markets for a broad range of consumer applications the stigma of “criminality” and the negative associations formed in the collective memory over many generations by government propaganda need to be effectively addressed. Fortunately, this can be achieved rather methodically over time by a combination of clear and succinct messaging delivered through relevant and high resolution content, espousing operational transparency and accountability, enforcing the strictest safety and quality controls to ensure consistency, and investing in the best design money can buy across your brand’s touchpoints from identity through to product or service, visuals, content, packaging, merchandise, environmental, digital, as applicable.
The Soul
Most of the typical barriers for new brands entering a market are essentially functional not emotive. But it would be a mistake to not consider this to be the most fundamental consideration of all. It is as vitally important for a Cannabis product or service to effectively differentiate themselves as it is for any other highly competitive consumer product or service. In fact, almost definitely more so due to some of the unique challenges already mentioned above. Every successful brand inhabits a community much like a movement or a belief. It has a discernible voice and an identity as expressed in a coordinated, curated and uniform fashion across its ecosystem of touchpoints. It is embedded in the aesthetics but also in the operational practices and internal culture as much as in the outbound storytelling and customer relationship management. Who’s your target audience and what is your unique value proposition for them? A great place to start seeking what you sound and look and feel like, i.e., how your audiences experience you is after successfully defining your reason to exist.
Switzerland provides a convenient haloing opportunity when dealing with a controversial topic like cannabis while speaking to pharmaceutical integrity, precision and safety, ethical practices, and natural purity of the base ingredient as expressed through the fairy tale-like scenery.
A sure sign of relief. Enhanced in Switzerland.
Relief and relaxation along with sustainability goals embedded into a small batch organic cotton loungewear collection.
The Science
As much of the controversy around the topic of cannabis has to do with the popular misunderstanding of the chemistry, therein lies a clear opportunity to demonstrate leadership on behalf of your brand. The story of the various cannabinoids and their related effects may well need to remain in any cannabis brand’s mandatory communications arsenal for some time as an obvious and necessary way to inform the broadest audiences so they are able to make intelligent and confident choices safely. This matters to the consumer when it comes to choosing your brand over the competition but more fundamentally orienting themselves among the various delivery mechanisms, formats and compounds. Terminology matters crucially which is why the use of the word marijuana or any other colloquial references should likely be avoided in favor of the traditional Latin form. Hemp has been historically used as a more broadly acceptable term even if it is somewhat awkward due to its agricultural origins. The confusion over the science combined with ineffective messaging means that there is a pervasive lack of knowledge on behalf of the consumers on the broad range of applications of cannabis chemistry from recreational to pharmaceutical to personal care and cosmetics to food. This represents a huge missed opportunity for growth regardless of which category your cannabis brand belongs to.
Purity and transparency along with safety and reliability as expressed in packaging form for a pharmaceutical delivery method.
Explaining a 24-hour time-released CBD-empowered beauty routine through packaging graphics.
The Safety
When it comes to any consumer product or service but especially pharmaceutical, beauty and personal care, or food item safety is a vital baseline requirement. Closely related to the stigma and the science challenges, safety along with efficacy as measures of quality (or purity) has obvious implications on packaging design and delivery methods. But no less than on the supply chain and operations including internal culture, etc. In case of food products that contain psychoactive cannabinoids and are intended for recreational adult consumption even the flavoring becomes a central aspect of responsible product design and should be carefully considered in order to reduce the appeal to undesirable audiences and to further discourage accidental exposure while maximizing appeal and affording ease of use to the target groups.
ISO-certified production process and highest purity ingredients encapsulated.
The Selling
The last of the common issues to be addressed for most cannabis entrepreneurs but clearly not the least is transactional whether we are speaking of online or brick and mortar stores. Despite considerable advances in quickly and inexpensively establishing an online presence with e-commerce for just about any other consumer product by any number of popular hosted template platforms like Squarespace of Shopify, selling cannabis products remains as one of the key chokeholds along with banking, shipping and customs, and law enforcement. Due to restrictions by major payment processors that integrate with these platforms by default, and by outdated government regulations concerning interstate and international commerce. While there isn’t yet a patented cure for all of these ails there are dedicated payment processors ranging in reliability for cannabis transactions and a few different and creative ways to get your non-THC online store up and running with a little bit of expert coding help.
With regard to the physical store experiences it is equally important to understand the general learnings from decades of effective retail and merchandising design in terms of product placement, queuing, activities, and checkout as it is to have a nuanced understanding of the constantly changing consumer expectations with regard to what constitutes a delightful and meaningful high street shopping experience. The place must obviously stay true to the brand while still remaining flexible and scalable in terms of the underlying prototype kit of parts and to the geography and streetscape that it inhabits. And it should probably not look like a pharmacy or a dispensary unless that is exactly what it is intended to be.
A glimpse at an evolving non-psychoactive cannabis offering.
As holdovers from the pre-decriminalization era of cannabis, of outdated science and government regulation and propaganda and the related confusion of the cash crop for recreational consumption and cannabinoids as natural, non-toxic, non-psychoactive ingredients in pharmaceuticals, food, nutritional supplements, and beauty products, effectively addressing these core aspects will give your brand a fighting chance in the onslaught that is sure to continue to unravel exponentially in the coming months as more brands enter the cannabis space until mainstream brands acquire and aim to crush as much of the perceived competition as possible. We’d love to be a part of the conversation of making your brand succeed before the bubble bursts!
Mastercard
Mastercard - Commerce for Every Device
The more connected the world becomes, the easier it should be to connect with what matters most. Mastercard continues to innovate secure and seamless digital solutions across devices to meet your everyday needs.
Directed/Edited by our own Ryan Smith