Dank Garden is a new Detroit dispensary with an interesting feature: their owner is the first and only formerly incarcerated person in the state of Michigan to have a dispensary shop license. As a business owner, he has strong connections to his Detroit heritage and roots, so I thought this would be a very nice and interesting thing to incorporate into the feel of his business: a local and “urban” experience of purchasing weed, while still familiar, like going to a community garden.

Detroit and nearby Highland Park are also historically known as the City of Trees, so bringing a feeling of natural reclamation, growth, and the ever-present connection to cannabis all together into one visual language became the clear direction to take. There is also something to be said about someone starting fresh with his life and growing a figurative garden over the cracked, old concrete of the past he is putting behind him with this new business.

I went with a typeface that reminded me of the logo’s typeface, but still channeled a different energy and wasn’t so sharp. It reminded me of a farmer’s market or handwritten sign at a Detroit community market or garden. My foundational colors were pulled from the logo directly, and then I expanded the palette to include more vibrant and neon colors as per my managers’ request. My first stationery logo would serve as the baseline for the motion series, establishing a visual language I would then expand upon and bring into multiple motion compositions.

I’m thankful for my management and marketing team for the opportunity to design for yet another new Detroit dispensary. I feel a unique sense of purpose and fullfillment knowing that my work is going to be seen by people in the community that have accepted me into it ever since I came here a few years ago. Stay tuned for more designs for this place coming very soon! -L