Featured image for Skunk Factory Delivers Cannabis With A Bang

Skunk Factory Delivers Cannabis With A Bang

by Casha Doemland on 01/03/2019 | 4 Minute Read

Launched in 2018 with a cannabis-themed dinner and a stunning lookbook, Skunk Factory is a Bay Area-based cannabis brand that believes in delivering high-quality products with a bang. Packaged in matte black boxes with a vibrant belt of mustard, cyan and magenta, they manage to do just that with a little help from their friends Noise13, a San-Francisco-based brand strategy and design agency. 

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To sweeten the pot, Skunk Factory is kicking off the line with the delicious flavors of Ice Cream Sandwich, Azaî and Watermelon Sherbet for your vape cartridges, making them the perfect tastes to puff, puff, pass at the end your night.

We chatted with Noise13’s senior designer, Tara Odorizzi to learn more about the up and coming brand, as well as the inspiration behind the street-style inspired packaging.

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What was one of the biggest goals you set out to achieve with the packaging and how did you accomplish it?

It was important to create an opening experience that felt high-end and sophisticated but still satisfied the legal requirements of being child-resistant and tamper-evident, and of course, fit everything within Skunk Factory's budget. To achieve this, it required a lot of coordinating with the printer to devise a custom box and interior trey as well as plenty of research to find child-resistant packaging options. 

To elevate the box, we used an uncoated black stock with white and silver ink to deliver a more luxurious feel from a production perspective. As far as design, I think it was important to balance the louder areas like the flavor indicator, the repeated logo and the spray paint texture, with as much negative space and minimalism in other areas as we could manage considering how much legal text there was to fit in!

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What’s the inspiration behind the flavor indicators and the labels?

The founders of Skunk Factory loves the aesthetic and attitude of streetwear, so we took inspiration from the repetition and vivid colors of caution tape. Although it may seem counter-intuitive to reference something that typically signals alarm and avoidance, doing so, in this case, helped give the packaging a youthful, rebellious edge that felt right for their audience and brand.

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How did you tell Skunk Factory’s brand story through the packaging?

Skunk Factory is a brand dedicated to providing clean, high-quality cannabis products to people young or young at heart who are open about their consumption and live their lives unapologetically. The exterior of the package communicates the more emotional traits of the brand through the spray paint texture and the bright, bold flavor indicator tape that wraps around the box. 

Combining these visual elements with more sophisticated cues like the uncoated black stock and the silver and white ink hints at the extremely high-quality product inside the box. The messaging in the opening experience only reinforces that personality while giving more context to the brand.

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How did you elevate the branding to meet Skunk Factory’s goal?

We were lucky to work with Skunk Factory because they came to us with a lot of great ideas and an excellent creative director, Monica Lo, who had laid a strong foundation for the brand. At the same time, they were willing to evolve and placed a lot of trust in our recommendations. As a company, they understand the value of brand and design, and their desire to invest in that aspect of their business made our creative process run that much more smoothly. We collaborated to find a design solution that both suited their vision and achieved their goals.

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