Best Buds: Your Friendly Neighborhood Cannabis-Themed Food Truck
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“Keep the good times rollin’. Best Buds is dedicated to providing a
‘pot-sitively’ unique dining experience in a safe and friendly environment.”
Introduction:
Keep the good times rollin’ with Best Buds! With its friendly branding and quirky personality, the a cannabis-themed food truck is the perfect place to experiment with low-dosage, CBD infused menu items guaranteed to satisfy the munchies! Designed cater to the cravings of local weed enthusiasts and those looking to experiment with recreational marijuana usage, all menu items have the option to be infused with ethically sourced CBD for customers +21 with valid state ID.
Best Buds offers customers a new and refreshing take on cannabis brand design, emphasizing the food truck’s charming, friendly environment and customer experience. Through the use of inviting imagery, Best Buds promotes a safe, stress-free environment to experiment with low-dosage edibles, while simultaneously establishing a brand image that is unique to other pre-existing product design within the cannabis industry.
Research:
While trying to find inspiration that fit the vision I had for Best Buds, it was very difficult to find any cannabis-related imagery that fit my vision.
In my research, I concluded that preexisting product design for cannabis fell under one of two categories:
- Stoner psychedelia
- Clean-cut medical
While the latter of the two was closer to what I was going for, as I wanted customers to feel secure and safe in the consumption of our products, the design that I was imagining for Best Buds was less sterile and more fun. I ultimately abandoned my search for design inspiration in the cannabis industry, and instead, turned to illustration as my primary source of inspiration for the artistic direction that would go on to inform the final brand image of Best Buds.
Logo Exploration:
In the end, the execution of the Best Buds logo was crucial in establishing a reputable brand image for the truck that encapsulated the fun, friendly, goofy environment that I had in mind for the cannabis-themed truck.
Below are some examples from my early stages of logo exploration:
Final Logo:
I experimented with several options until I settled on the final logo: two cannabis leaves, arms linked with a fork and spoon in hand, happy and on the go. I felt as though this logo captured the quirky nature of the food truck, all while tying in elements like it being an “on-the-go” type of place, and of course, a place to enjoy a meal!
Feature Design Process:
For my feature design, like all other aspects of the Best Buds branding, establishing the friendly, inviting atmosphere of the truck was crucial in my creative process while I began the process of creating the vehicle wrap.
Basing the rest of my branding off of the style of the logo, I decided to experiment with several illustrations that I complied into multiple different patterns, as I originally wanted to create a “step-and-repeat” style wrap. However, after creating the illustrations, I found potential in several of the new characters that I had drawn, and decided that creating a narrative for the vehicle wrap would be the most effective way to communicate the Best Buds vibe!
Here are some sample illustrations that I created with my original vision for the wrap in mind:
The final version of the food truck design features a vehicle wrap that tells the story of people munchin’ on good food while enjoying the benefits of recreational cannabis. The friendly nature of the truck was successfully translated through imagery such as the girl holding buds in her hands, as well as the man hugging a bud.
Simple illustrations such as these illuminate the warm, welcoming nature that Best Buds is aimed to establish among its customers. The wrap’s happy-go-lucky feel, coupled with the cannabis and food imagery, emphasizes not only the mood of the truck, but the purpose of the truck as an on-the-go style eatery and a safe space to experiment with edibles.
Collateral: Packaging and Merchandise
While I chose to abandon the step-and-repeat concept for the vehicle wrap, I still thought that the illustrations that I originally produced had the potential to make for a visually interesting pattern that could be used in other aspects of my branding: parchment paper, merchandise, packaging — you name it!
Below are some samples of merchandise and packaging that I created in which I was able to effectively reuse the illustrations I had created for the vehicle wrap, while creating products consistent with the truck’s image and purpose.
When coming up with packaging solutions, I was particularly excited to recreate the “special brownie” menu item, as it is a playful take on the iconic edible treat. To match this playful energy, I created parchment packaging with the same step-and-repeat pattern used in the merchandise, as well as adorned the brownie with a cute, simplified logo element drawn in icing.
For other packaging samples, it was imperative that I use other imagery instead of recycling the logo too many times. For the burger mockup, for example, I used another illustration from my wrap exploration to create a functional to-go bag that remains consistent with the remainder of the branding without the over-reliance on the logo.
Digital Supporting Element: Social Media Campaign
Creating a youthful, online presence felt imperative for the preservation of the cool, hip, yet inclusive environment that characterizes Best Buds, and the most obvious way to create an online presence is simple: a social media campaign.
Of all of the supporting elements, I had the most fun creating the visuals featured in the food truck’s main feed, specifically an animation of the Best Buds walking through the streets of visiting cities. As I gained more experience in Adobe AfterEffects this semester, I was excited to translate my new skills into this project. While this animation was a challenge, I am so happy I stuck with it because the bounce and personality of the characters is brought to life and further emphasizes the playful, quirky vision of the truck.
Environmental Design: Billboards & Signage
The last supporting element of the Best Buds was to create some kind of environmental design and for the grandeur and size of Best Buds’ personality, it only felt fitting to create an equally bold design: a billboard.
Best Buds’ slogan, Keep the good times rollin’, presented a perfect opportunity to create a visual emphasizing the mobility and fast-paced food truck experience coupled with the whimsical personality of the truck itself.
Upon further investigation as to what constitutes as good billboard design, with the artistic direction of my peers and professors, I decided to create a second billboard that depicted a mockup that I had created to emphasize the food service and preparation element of the truck.
Conclusion:
Through significant trial and error, developing Best Buds and it's branding taught me the value of constant evolution and improvement within design. There were many moments throughout this process that I considered my work to be “finished,” however, the more I continued to develop the visuals that would go on to define the feel of the truck, the more I found myself making small changes that made a huge difference in my final product. Overall, I am proud of the work that I completed over the last few months while designing Best Buds. The trucks’ quirky weirdness, yet friendly atmosphere is exactly what I envisioned within my initial brainstorms, and I couldn’t be happier with the final product. I hope you all enjoyed my process as well, and remember: Keep the good times rollin’!
Credits
Designer: Jordan Rosenblum
Instructor: Jenny Kowalski, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University
Stock Photography by Adobe Stock
