You’d be amazed by how many people message me through myspace asking if we sell herb. Ummm, no. That’s illegal. (not to mention totally retarded) I have no idea what gives these people the impression that we would be selling anything other than jars or scopes. Maybe I need to include a disclaimer in all the photos – “jars come empty” – but really? Buying something that’s illegal over the internet? I tried to rationalize what these individuals might thinking…maybe I’m just really well informed and some people actually think that you can buy weed online? Needless to say I try to be cordial to these misinformed stoners. Maybe they just got into the lifestyle. Maybe they’re only 16 and don’t know a bong from a steamroller. I remember when I started smoking. I was so eager to learn everything I could about cannabis. So I try to give then a break and reply back (mostly) with a kind email pointing out that selling and possessing cannabis is illegal in the US. Maybe I need to come up with some canned response to these emails. Something helpful and productive. Something that can inform people that trying to purchase illegal substances over the internet is probably not the best idea. I guess in the end I should just have a little laugh (and pity) over these emails. There’s always going to be people that ask misinformed questions. I suppose it’s my duty as a so called “pot expert” (I do own 420 Science after all) to help these people that are in our tribe. Yes, I just called you a tribe. Get used to it.
‘420 Jars’ Category
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Really dude?
October 22, 2008 by admin
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420 Jars business card time capsule
October 21, 2008 by admin
Over the years we’ve amassed quite the collection of business cards. We never print more than 500. This allows us to update our design more often. Most companies don’t have that luxury. Designers are expensive after all. (good ones at least) This photo is every business card that we’ve had over the past 5 years. Excessive? Perhaps, but it serves as a great time capsule of 420 Jars design evolution. A few different versions of the logo, color palettes and card sizes. I have the tendency to look back at our older designs and laugh. “oh look how cute we were!” Our brand has definitely improved over the years. The big question is where do we go from here? Lately we’ve really been rocking white space in our ads. Will our new business card reflect that? Do we even need business cards? We don’t hand out that many. But I suppose it’s something that’s needed. I would look down on a business that didn’t have a card to give me. Though if they had a card to give me they open themselves up for my own design judgment. Yes, I’m a design snob.
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2008 Cannabis Cup Guidebook Ad
October 13, 2008 by admin
I’ve been working on this ad for the past week. We won’t be attending this cup this year due to our move to Austin. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t sell some jars. I blogged about the 2008 Cannabis Cup logo a few weeks ago and still think that this is going to be a great looking jar. The photo in this ad is a blank jar with the logo photoshopped in. Looks pretty good right? It is my job after all. Matt and I spent a while this morning coming up with the headline. I wasn’t happy with some of the first ones, but as soon as “Don’t get stoned without it” came out of his mouth we both erupted with laughter and knew it was the one. We’re oh so fucking clever I know! I’m really happy with this ad. I like that we’ve gotten away from ads that are really heavy on graphics and background clutter. Whitespace works well for us. Taking pictures of our products with prop weed has really added to our ads too… sometimes I can’t believe that I take pictures of weed for a living. Yep, just another day at the office…
UPDATE: Cannabis Cup Jars will be available starting December 1st
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October Newsletter
October 7, 2008 by admin
The office has been productive the past couple days. Getting a lot of little projects crossed off the list. We’re also slammed with orders, so it looks like we’re going to have a busy holiday season. The impending move to Austin is also bearing down on us. Less than 10 weeks away and still so much to do. We can’t even start packing until mid-december. Not to mention we still have to find places to live. It could be the hardest thing we’ve done to date… but we’ll work it out. Anyway, I made this today. In case you didn’t know, the 420 Science Club is our special mailing list. You can join anytime. Like today. Right now.
Nothing really here that you didn’t already know if you read this blog. However, you probably didn’t know about our sale jars. Check out our website for more info.
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Guillermo from Weeds
October 6, 2008 by admin
I’ve received a lot of comments on the photo of Guillermo Díaz with the giant 420 Jar. Probably the best photo of the night. Both Matt and I got to talk to him a little bit too. Both of us, and just about all our friends, are huge fans of the show. Going into the event I wasn’t really sure who was going to be there, but as soon as I saw him walk in the room I knew we had to meet him and get him to take some photos with the jar. I had no idea what his name was. I was surprised and somewhat relieved to find that his name was the same as his character on the show. From there we proceeded to tell him we were big fans of the show, got the pictures with the giant 420 Jar and took some hits from the Helix (both of these items were huge hits that night). We brought a few Helixes with us to give away and I knew that we had to hook up Guillermo. He was really nice to us and very appreciative of everything. Quite opposite from his character on Weeds. It must be fun for him to play such a bad ass. Later in the night we also gave him a Gravitron. He almost didn’t want to take it (we’d given him so much already) but the girl that he was with nudged him and was like “I want that dummy, don’t say no!”. He graciously accepted it and thanked us again. Guillermo was awesome and definitely one of the highlights of the evening.
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The High Times 2008 Stony Awards
October 2, 2008 by admin
We’ve been back nearly 4 days and I’m only now starting to recover from the Stony Awards. It was a great experience for 420 Science and all our friends who we brought along with us. We were able to connect with some major celebrities and even smoke out with a few of them. We handed out over 200 gift bags and various other schwag from Gravitron and Holy Waters. We also printed out a banner to have celebs stand in front of with our giant 420 Jar. Unfortunately the bouncer in the VIP room was under strict orders and no photography was allowed. (I guess famous people don’t want pictures of them smoking pot floating around) I did manage to squeeze out a few decent photos. The most notable being some of Weeds star Guillermo Díaz posing with the giant 420 Jar.
Other notable meetings included James Franco from Pineapple Express, Madeline Zima from Californication (showtime), the Sprint Guy from the Alltel commercials, a group of actors from Battlestar Galactica (weird), a transvestite, the O-face guy from Office Space and…the list could go on. I recognized a lot of people, but wasn’t sure from where. TV I’m guessing.
It was crazy back in the VIP room. Once we started handing out gift bags we could hardly set them out fast enough. Not to mention we were demoing the new Helix pipe from Gravitron. (I haven’t shown you that yet, though you have seen the logo) The gift bag included a 420 Jar and various 420 Science propaganda. We also gave away 4 Gravitrons, 200 Tasters, 420 Scopes and a bunch Holy Waters Tshirts. High Times was also giving out gifts bags that included some pretty cool stuff. (We’re planning on giving a few away during the holidays)
By 8:30 it was all over. I couldn’t even tell you who won what, but we definitely made some great connections back in the VIP room. Everyone in our party was toasted (some more than others) and it was time to head back to the hotel. This, unfortunately is where the story turns a little sour. In all the chaos of the evening Matt misplaced the keys for my truck, locking us out, and sending me into panic. We spent about an hour looking through all our possessions with no luck. We decided that none of us were in the right frame of mind to continue the search and headed back to the hotel for some Volcano love and the after party.
I wish I had some crazy after party stories to tell, but to be honest, we’re old. I had been up since 5AM and we were all pretty wiped out from the experience. A few of us did venture into some other rooms with special rice crispy treats that I had concocted. Those were gone instantly. It’s amazing how trusting people are. Who knows what I could have put in them. Maybe next time I’ll just make regular ones and hand them out. It’s not like anyone would know. They’re already wasted right? We stayed up a few more hours smoking, drinking and mocking Sarah Palin. By midnight the hotel was quiet and we called it a night.
The next morning I woke up early and made some calls in order to get into my truck so we could all go home. I now own a $325 key for my truck. Maybe I should paint it gold… Anyway, we made it out of Malibu at a reasonable time and back to Phoenix safely. The Stonys were a great experience for us and we look forward to see what comes of our trip in the coming months. Hopefully some product placements and celebrity endorsements.
I’ve posted some of the photos on 420 Science MySpace page already. More to come.
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SmoCo Postcards
September 22, 2008 by admin
Our friend’s head shop opens in a couple weeks. ACL is this weekend and they’ll be passing out 5000 of these postcards to get the word out. I didn’t really go into the project with much of a thought of what it was going to look like. Evan needed it quickly, so I just sat down and started drawing it out. I took some pictures of some clouds a couple of days ago and decided to throw one of those into the mix. From there everything came together pretty quickly. The sky background looked really natural against the sign. A somewhat obvious solution, but that’s been the theme for this project so far. I decided to change up the backside and make it opposite of the front. Landscape orientation and warm colors. I really like the way it looks. As if the sun is shining down and Jesus himself was on his way in to pick up some 420 Jars and a Gravitron. Don’t forget your 420 Scope Jesus!
Anyway, if you’re in Austin and you see one of these cards pick it up and tell me about it. I’ll make it worth your time.
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Rachel Hoffman: Someone you know
September 15, 2008 by admin
A few months ago I saw the story of Rachel Hoffman. She’s the 20 something girl who was murdered in a drug sting gone terribly wrong. I saw the story in High Times a few months ago. Recently ABC News featured this story about the incident. It’s a tragic story and ABC does an excellent job of pointing out the critical missteps of local law enforcement and how they brought about the death of this poor girl. All for the sake of a drug bust. This video is something I think everyone should see. It’s somewhat reasuring to see this story make it into the mainstream media. Maybe there’s some hope for us.
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Stony Awards
September 11, 2008 by admin
Every year High Times puts on an event called the Stony’s. It’s like the Oscars for weed related films and TV shows. Here’s a clip from Conan O’Brien talking about the awards show.
So, Matt calls me today (he’s on vacation) and tells me that we’re going to be sponsoring this years Stony’s. Of course I’m like “fuck yeah, let’s do it!” And with that, we were in. I’m really excited at the prospect of meeting Seth Rogen. I love that guy. How awesome was Superbad? We also took all of our employees to see Pineapple Express a few weeks ago. Also an awesome stoner flick. Who doesn’t want to have a whacky adventure with their dealer? The show is Sept 27 in LA. We’re going to be taking a few of our employees and some select friends along with us. I think it’s going to be a great time and an adequate substitution for the Cannabis Cup this year. Only a 5 hour drive too. I don’t think I’ll miss the 12 hour flight to Amsterdam this year.
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SmoCo Logo
September 10, 2008 by admin
Our friends in Austin are opening a head shop and guess who’s designing the logo. That’s right, this guy right here. The shop will be located off of South Congress in an area that’s known as SoCo. Yes, as you probably guessed, it’s a hipsters paradise. People riding around on fixed gear bikes, eating tex-mex and doing whatever else we hipsters do. (Yes, I’m admitting that I could be called a hipster, but I’m a elitist graphic designer first and foremost.) Anyway, being in SoCo, we decided to call the shop SmoCo. Matt and I were brainstorming names and came upon this one withing minutes (his idea). The minute I heard it I knew it was golden. It wasn’t hard to sell anyone else on the name either. So, with the shop now christened, it was time to make it look good. I sketched out a few different ideas before coming up with a solution that might be considered a little obvious, but quite clever never the less.
There are still some final touches that need to be worked out, but this is pretty much it. Everyone loves it too. I believe Evan called it a “home run”. I don’t if it’s an award winning logo, but I do think it’s a great solution for the shop. I have lots of ideas for all the different applications of the logo too. Shirts, fliers, ads…you name it. Now I just need to get paid for it. That’ll be $2000 Evan.
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