A revolution in sustainable design

  • Brand Identity
  • Brand Strategy
  • Packaging
  • Product Design
  • Website

The Challenge

In 2018, the cannabis space was emerging as one of the fastest growing consumer goods categories in North America. However, with the challenges of heavy and ever changing regulations, the market for packaging was a complicated and littered with bulky unsustainable solutions. Further to this, due to the limited amount of solutions available, brands were caught in a position of blending in with one another. There was a huge opportunity to create a business that met the need of brands to offer their consumers differentiated packaging experiences that didn’t harm the environment.

The Approach

We created a partnership with the two founders of Ventiv Design, with the mission of disrupting the cannabis packaging space and solving the ever growing environmental issues associated with it.

Our first challenge was a name for the business. Here we started with the companies mission, subsequently naming the company “Ventiv”, which captured the idea of inventiveness and the dual preventative nature of the packaging (preventative of children accessing, and from causing harm to the environment).

The identity was next. We wanted the brand to feel trustworthy, innovative and future focused. With this in mind we created a word marque with modern geometry and a subtle storytelling element that anchored the marque to the organic provenance of the product.

The icon was created as a simple yet powerful symbol of change and a subtle nod to the flower it relates to.

Animating the marque was a joy, capturing the dynamic nature of the business as well as differentiating the brand from it’s usually overly corporate competition.

We knew the journey to a fully customisable, sustainable and compliant packaging portfolio would be long, so we created a simple yet powerful holding website to help with investor and potential client conversations.

Once the portfolio was completed, and the business ready to sell, we designed and developed a custom built e-commerce style website that had built in augmented reality software to allow potential customers to preview the products they were interested in real context.

In addition, we created a simple back end system that allowed our partners Ventiv to manage products, potential new orders and updates to the site.

Our approach to the packaging portfolio started with a deep analysis of the market, looking at which existing solutions were working well for clients, and which we felt we could optimise. We built a portfolio strategy, from which briefs were created for each of the products e.g. “create a fully recyclable and compostable premium solution for edibles, cartridges and pre rolls”. From this we set out target COGS and end clients, and set out in an audacious design phase.

On the journey, we knew the importance of finding the very best manufacturing partners to deliver against our expectations. As a result we visited and interviewed multiple partners across China, from the most advance sustainable material manufacturers to the leaders in producing complex glass designs. In total, we visited over 50 factories across China and North America, ensuring we had the right partners to deliver. Meanwhile, we were developing a variety of new potential solutions alongside our IP partners, who helped ensure our designs were not only unique, but could be protected once produced. In total we filed over 20 patents to the USPO.

Our subsequent portfolio deliver against all the initial briefs and allowed Ventiv to launch with a diverse enough portfolio to capture any client within the cannabis space. By establishing the business successfully By establishing the business successfully in such a complex market, clients from outside of the cannabis space were able to gain confidence in Ventivs ability to tackle issues of sustainability and brand differentiation in their own categories.

Ventiv is now diversifying into the alcohol and wellness categories, supplying sustainable packaging solutions to new brands across US.

Of all the designs we created, arguably the most complex was designing a sustainable child resistant airless pump for topical solutions and oils. All existing solutions employed bulky mechanisms, which added weight, and virgin materials, drawing more strain on the finite resources the world has to offer.

Our solution employed complex engineering of an airless pump, which allowed the design to be simple to open and close. In addition, with extensive material testing we were able to manufacture the pump using FDA approved food safe 100% post consumer recycled plastic, as well as offering customers a 100% ocean plastic based pump solution. An industry and world first in design and engineering.

Other designs included, a recycled glass and plastic child proof jar with an inbuilt grinder, a child proof tin made with recycled plastic and tin with a bamboo fibre moulded fibre tray, a fully compostable and recyclable box, and a borosilicate jar made with the least amount materials as possible so as to reduce the overall footprint.

Ventiv launched in January 2020 to immediate success in capturing customers interested in differentiating themselves. The company continues it’s partnership with us, and we are continuing to work on optimizing the existing portfolio, whilst developing even more impactful solutions for the future. As the company grows and diversifies outside of the cannabis category, we believe it will inspire the competition to innovate along more sustainable lines. We believe in moving competition in the right direction rather than leaving them behind. Here is to a new sustainable future in packaging!

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