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Vanguard Genetics
A California cannabis company built on cultivation and cold ethanol extraction. The brief was a logo refresh. The work was making a mark that still holds at the size their products actually are.
A mark that survives being small. Most of this brand appears at the size of a dropper label, so that is where it was judged.
Deliverables
- Logotype refinement
- Standalone logomark
- Product mockups
- Brand guidelines
Overview
Vanguard Genetics came in wanting a more professional look, to sharpen recognition in a category where most packaging is trying to shout.
The existing logo was a curly script carrying drop shadows and a white stroke with a shadow behind it. Some of it was right for the brand. The rest was decoration that fell apart the moment the logo got small or went to one colour.
Refining the script
The script was redrawn with fewer curls and the effects taken off, which left a wordmark that can be set at any size without the shadows filling in. With the typography settled we added an icon, because a logotype carrying a tagline has nothing left to give at product size.
A mark that works alone
Cannabis products are small. A standalone icon is recognisable on a dropper or a sticker where a full lockup is not, so the mark had to be able to leave the wordmark behind and still be theirs.
The DNA strand from the original design carried over. It keeps the reference to genetics that was already in the brand, and it gives the icon a structure to be drawn from rather than a shape invented for the occasion.
