Root of Ruderalis – Murphy Armitage

Root of Ruderalis

transmedia design, concept development, branding, creative direction, product development, product marketing, print, packaging, web

The Root of Ruderalis brand was designed with the goal of making alternative medical marijuana products more approachable to older audiences. The brand produces topical solutions with cannabis extracts designed as a smokeless method of treatment for pain and inflammation. The early rush for medical marijuana brands to produce edibles and topicals led to poorly packaged products with little transparency into ingredients or benefits, resulting in older demographics not considering them as a plausible form of treatment. The Root of Ruderalis brand was created to fill that gap and to provide a transparent, approachable, and easy to understand medical marijuana line of topical products.

Branding

concept development

Brand Goals

attributes

calming

safe

clean

transparent

sustainable

approachable

look and feel

apothecary

botanical

turn of the century

etching / intaglio

woodcut

colonial revival

The main branding goal was to appeal to older demographics and those wary of using medical marijuana as a means for pain relief. There is a stigma with marijuana that discourages potential patients from trying out cannabinoid treatments. Changing the perception of medical marijuana products creates an avenue to move past the stigma and create a more accessible experience with potential end users. The Root of Ruderalis brand seeks to provide a transparent, approachable, and easy to understand line of medical cannabis products by expressing itself with a design language from a more trusting time frame - the turn of the century.

Nomenclature

Cannabis ruderalis is a lesser known species of the genus cannabis. Cannabis indica and Cannabis sativa are widely known as they contain the most THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. While C. ruderalis is less common on its own, it's very common practice to breed C. ruderalis with the other species in order to create specialized hybrids. Hybrids bring out specific characteristics in the cannabis plant such as rapid vegetation, auto-flowering, and lower or higher yields of cannabinoids such as CBD and THC. Ruderalis was chosen as a base of the brand name due to its medicinal sounding tone, versatile use in the industry, and its roots in the nomenclature of the genus Cannabis.

Design Inspiration

The Root of Ruderalis brand takes inspiration from a design language of a more trusting timeframe - the turn of the century. We looked at visuals and typefaces related to Post American Colonial and Victorian eras such as apothecary medicine, pharmaceuticals, and botanical textbooks representative of the time frame’s approach to visual communication.

Logomark DNA

The logomark was created with a modified version of the Archive Copperplate typeface. Logos and logotypes of the time frame often utilized woodcut and copperplate etching styles in the printmaking application of documents and designs. We wanted the same look and feel to resonate with our audience.

Archive Copperplate

Script, Blackletter

Typography

The Caslon typeface was originally designed by William Caslon in 1725. It had little popularity in Europe but was distributed to much of the British colonies such as North America. Caslon became popular in the typesetting and printing of books and was used in early documents like the U.S Declaration of Independence. The typeface is considered warm and friendly while being comfortable to the eye due to its highly legible and aesthetically appealing qualities. Modern versions like Adobe Caslon Pro slightly depart from the original cut but remain frequently used by designers centuries later.

Adobe Caslon Pro

Serif, Old-Style

Adobe Caslon Pro

Serif, Old-Style

Adobe Caslon Pro - 45 Light

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

1234567890(,./!@#$%^&*\-_+=)

Adobe Caslon Pro - 46 Light

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

1234567890(,./!@#$%^&*\-_+=)

Adobe Caslon Pro - 75 Bold

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

1234567890(,./!@#$%^&*\-_+=)

Color

Pain relief is the primary goal of Root of Ruderalis Topical Solutions. With this goal in mind we looked at cool and soothing color pallets for the brand identity. Taking inspiration from Arctic and Antarctic imagery we looked at colors present in ice sheets, snow, glaciers, and the ocean. Blue, teal and their surrounding color tones induce a calming, sympathetic, cooling, and a peaceful psychological effect on the viewer, making it a perfect fit for a brand created for pain relief.

Color Palette

Ice

hex: ebeef1

rgb: 235/238/241

cmyk: 6/4/3/0

Dark Ice

hex: 9ba8b8

rgb: 155/168/184

cmyk: 41/28/20/0

Teal

hex: 2aadb8

rgb: 42/173/184

cmyk: 73/10/28/0

Dark Teal

hex: 05828e

rgb: 5/130/142

cmyk: 85/33/40/5

Ocean

hex: 314c59

rgb: 49/76/89

cmyk: 83/60/48/32

Dark Ocean

hex: 243741

rgb: 36/55/65

cmyk: 84/65/54/50

White

hex: ffffff

rgb: 255/255/255

cmyk: 0/0/0/0

Black

hex: 000000

rgb: 0/0/0

cmyk: 0/0/0/98

Print Design

packaging

Products

product design, print design, packaging design

The Root of Ruderalis packaging designs were created to reflect printing processes and papers available around the turn of the century and earlier. We chose to embrace poor trapping techniques and bleed line practices in order to create a larger margin of error in the printing process. By designing little to no bleed area in respect to fold lines and dielines, we created an end result with properly registered typography well within the safe zone, and blocks of color that had inconsistencies around the edges. The strategy created a look and feel with a bit of character that was reflective of old school print processes and homemade products without sacrificing the print quality of product information.