Serra is a sophisticated cannabis-retailer redefining the progressive and artful pot-culture experience.
As with any project, we dove deep into research, visiting countless dispensaries. As outsiders, we had a lot of questions: Did it have to be green? What are terpenes? What about titration? Did someone say cannabinoid? How will it affect me? Why does it affect each of us differently? Didn’t that “budtender” say this was supposed to be mild? Do we have to call them “budtenders”? The list went on.
Making sense of it all was overwhelming initially, and the people we wanted to reach were not cannabis experts. The brand had to be approachable, and many myths, stigmas, and mysteries around cannabis and its effects needed dispelling. So, we focused less on the numbers (% THC / % CBD), less on the strain types (Indica, Sativa, Hybrid), and more on how it would make you feel.
Happiness, Relaxation, Energy, Creativity, Focus, and Relief were the six categories we landed on. We built a suite of icons to accompany each effect, and these functioned as the customer’s guide in making their selections in-store.
Contrary to the types of dispensaries that were so commonplace at the time, we didn’t use green. We didn’t use pot leaves. Instead, we used restraint and more sophisticated language that opened the brand up to new kinds of customers. We landed on a rich, royal blue to carry the color story of the brand, a modern yet elegant type treatment for the wordmark, and a palette of clean, natural elements such as brass, marble, custom concrete tile, and plenty of lush plant life to round out the interior aesthetic. Our custom-designed displays nodded to classic greenhouse form in the scale and high-end execution of a jewelry case.
The brand and interior quickly garnered press in major national publications, and much of the industry followed suit in focusing on the feelings, not the numbers.
Serra is a sophisticated cannabis-retailer redefining the progressive and artful pot-culture experience.
As with any project, we dove deep into research, visiting countless dispensaries. As outsiders, we had a lot of questions: Did it have to be green? What are terpenes? What about titration? Did someone say cannabinoid? How will it affect me? Why does it affect each of us differently? Didn’t that “budtender” say this was supposed to be mild? Do we have to call them “budtenders”? The list went on.
Making sense of it all was overwhelming initially, and the people we wanted to reach were not cannabis experts. The brand had to be approachable, and many myths, stigmas, and mysteries around cannabis and its effects needed dispelling. So, we focused less on the numbers (% THC / % CBD), less on the strain types (Indica, Sativa, Hybrid), and more on how it would make you feel.
Happiness, Relaxation, Energy, Creativity, Focus, and Relief were the six categories we landed on. We built a suite of icons to accompany each effect, and these functioned as the customer’s guide in making their selections in-store.
Contrary to the types of dispensaries that were so commonplace at the time, we didn’t use green. We didn’t use pot leaves. Instead, we used restraint and more sophisticated language that opened the brand up to new kinds of customers. We landed on a rich, royal blue to carry the color story of the brand, a modern yet elegant type treatment for the wordmark, and a palette of clean, natural elements such as brass, marble, custom concrete tile, and plenty of lush plant life to round out the interior aesthetic. Our custom-designed displays nodded to classic greenhouse form in the scale and high-end execution of a jewelry case.
The brand and interior quickly garnered press in major national publications, and much of the industry followed suit in focusing on the feelings, not the numbers.
