We’ve pretty much always created our designs in house and this has worked out well for us thus far. But I’ve always felt that my illustration skills were a bit lacking to take our designs to the next level. So with that in mind I started to look for an illustrator that could take our jar designs in a new direction. I’d been admiring the work of Jared Nickerson for a while now, so I contacted him and with very little convincing, he was on board.

We knew that we wanted a design that featured a skunk. I thought a coat of arms style would work for something like this and did my best to explain my vision to Jared. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite that easy. It took a lot of back and forth to get it done, but in the end, it really came together. Being on the other side of the designer/client relationship was definitely a learning experience for me. So after he wrapped up the skunk crest, I asked Jared if he’d be interested in redesigning our green leaf and perhaps something new.

The skunk crest took several weeks to get compete, but the next 2 came together in a matter of days. The new green leaf is a few notches above our old design and I really think that our customers are going to like it. The third design is my favorite though. The smiley face smoking a joint…brilliant. We’ve always had requests for a jar with a smiley face on it, but that’s not really our style, so I think that this will make those people happy. I know it makes us happy. We’re so happy with it that we’re going to make it our mascot. Look out for some t-shirts printed with the lips. I think we need to name him. Any thoughts?

Oh, you can get them here.

The Helix. Yes, I know how badly you all want one of your very own, but I can’t help you, I’m just the designer. Though we are now very close to doing a mailing to over 500 shops across the US. I placed the order for flyers yesterday and the mailing should be going out next week. I’m pretty happy with how the flier came out. The glowing flame effect is something new for me. I’ve been expanding my photo / illustration skills lately and thought it was time to put them into a project.

The switch to black is also a step in a new direction for the Gravitron brand. I think this look will carry over into the new spring catalog and also the trade magazine cover. Gravitron has the cover for the spring trade show. 420 Science will have the back cover. We really like having the back cover too. We’ve had that spot the last 2 issues. We’re not limited to what we can put on the back cover. The front cover has be more stylized and has all the magazine’s info, since it’s the cover and all. If you ask me the back is the place to be.

Again, for the most part, you can’t get these yet. Gravitron is selling them in a few shops in TX and some of their better clients are carrying them. I don’t know who those people are, so don’t ask. In the coming months we’ll be launching a website and we’ll have a list of shops that are carrying them. Until then, you can go into you favorite local shop and tell them about the Helix and how badly you want one. You can even encourage them to call up Gravitron and place an order.

Have a great Thanksgiving my fellow tribe members.

I don’t really have too much to show this week. I’ve been working on a new retail catalog that we’ll start sending out at the end of the year. I also have started working on a new catalog for Gravitron, the Helix and the cover of HQ for the spring CHAMPS show. Yes, I’m busy, but it’s all in the beginning phases at the moment.

Not to mention preparing for the move to Austin. I can’t wait till it’s all over and we’re finally settled there. Though it’s going to be a long road to get to that point. We’re still trying to lock down a good warehouse & office space. Right now our office is at the house and we communicate with the warehouse virtually. But in Austin we’re all going to be under one roof. It’s going to be a big change, but a good one. I’m still not sure how I feel about having to come into the office every day, but hopefully the commute will be short (preferably a bike ride).

Also…

Smoco (headshop in Austin) has finally opened it’s doors. Matt was in Austin over the weekend and snapped this photo of the front of the store. Yep, that’s my handy work. Looks pretty cool. We just got some jars done with the logo too.

I also received another question that I wanted to answer. Kim, one of our long time supporters, asked why we don’t have music on our page. She wants to hear what we’re listening to at the office and not just see it on the blog. Well Kim, I hate to say it, but I really dislike music on myspace pages. I guess it’s the fact that I listen to music at my desk and when someone’s page has music on it, well it interrupts my music with a horrible mashup of whatever I’m listening to and what’s on the page. Terrible I know. So that’s why we won’t ever have music on our main page. HOWEVER, I really like the idea of sharing my musical taste with my readers, so I’m going to work on getting a playlist up every month with what’s currently in heavy rotation at 420 Science Radio. Maybe even a podcast? Anyway, thanks for the question Kim and I’ll get something together soon. I love sharing music with people!

So here are some of the questions I got today. I answered a few other directly. I also copied the questions into the blog just like they came to me. Hopefully that will make some of you read what you wrote prior to sending it to me. Is this what our education system is producing? Silly stoners. Maybe my standards are just too high? Or maybe they are? Anyway, there were some good questions in there and I answered them to the best of my ability. Keep them coming. It makes for some interesting conversations around the office.

When are you getting some tshirts? I want to spread the word

Soon hopefully. Hats are on the way. Shirts are a little further off.

Due say i score like a pound of killa, how would i be able to keep it fresh untile i finish it? could i freeze it? would it still taste the same?

I think your best option for long term storage is breaking it up into smaller quantities (1-2 ounces) and investing in a vacuum sealing system. Bag them up and store them in the freezer perhaps in a larger plastic container. You’ll also want to make sure that your goods are properly cured before bagging. Then when you’re running low, pull out one of your freezer bags and dump it into a 420 Jar (or 2)

[update] After posting this reposonse a I received this message…
“no dude you cant freeze it will mold and your bud will get you sick as hell! DONT FREEZE! TRUST ME I KNOW. I TRYED IT AND IT DIDNT WORK I LOST LIKE 14Grams cause of it”

Unfortunately this poor soul fell victim to improperly cured smoke. If you freeze something with water in it you’re going to ruin it. It’s so very important that it’s properly cured before sealing and freezing. Check out this forum for more info on the subject.

are you really a 28-year-old female??

Wouldn’t you like to know? I think that would make you a lesbian since you’re my girlfriend. Hot!

what i want to know..eh? hmm..
i want to know what kind of tests or experiments you guys do with your products. like they do at car test tracks or those condom testing facilities where they blow them up like balloons to see when they’ll burst!
durability? freshness? smellyproffness?
what kind of science experiments are you guys doing?

We test all our products before we introduce them to market. If it’s not something that we’d use ourselves we don’t want to sell it. (Needless to say we have a lot of jars in our house.) Fortunately we aren’t promising that our jars will keep you from getting pregnant, so rigorous testing of every jar isn’t required. We do require Brian to keep a watchful eye on jar quality. We hate sending out inferior products. We’re testing out some new jars right now to make sure they keep the freshness in. After all, freshness matters.

“Anything, aye? Well I use a Volcano for smoking and my tolerance is high using the usual pieces, but my tolerance never changes with my Volcano, I ALWAYS AM RIPPED.

That’s not much of a question, but as a Volcano owner, I couldn’t agree more. What should also be mentioned is that a Volcano uses less product and you’re able to save the leftover duff and bake with it. It’s a very efficient way to smoke and well worth the investment. Check out www.gotvape.com and pick one up.

“whats the highest precent of thc i haerd it was 9.6″

I think this is almost a bit of a stoner myth. I did some research and came across a rather comprehensive study done in 1999. They sampled 42 strains with the highest being 31.6% THC. 9.6% is what would be a decent mid grade smoke. Most high potency strains are closer to 20% With all the advances in breeding that have come about over the past decade there is no doubt in my mind that the number will rise. Link to Article

I know you guys/girls are becoming pretty successful and was wondering if yas ever wanted to go for Tv Commercials on the 420 Science products, will the mainstream media punks let you or people like us advertise pro-cannabis products on tv?

I really doubt you’ll see anything cannabis related advertised on major networks anytime soon. Our industry is underground and mainstream America isn’t quite ready for us yet. It would be nice to think with the current budget crisis that the government will be changing how it spends money and end the war on a plant, but I’m not holding my breath…

Anyway we find that our advertising dollars are spent on print publications. There are a few web based video shows out there, but we’ve found that their impact is minimal compared to advertising in print publications. We are working on some of our own videos currently. So keep a watch out for those.

so do you sell anything but jars and magnifying glasses
I m from L.A. why would I go through all the trouble of ordering those things from you ? Im not being a dick I m just wondering what makes it better than the hundreds of types of jars I can get out here.

That’s an easy one. I’ve collected jars for a long time. Long before 420 Jars was even an idea in my cloudy mind. There are a lot of great ones out there. I especially love little jelly jars. Repurposed jars are great. They’re free and you’re reusing something rather than throwing it away. (good for the earth) But there is a problem. You’re paying a lot of money for quality smoke and probably spent a lot of money on a fancy pipe or two. Why would you want to keep you stash in a mayonnaise jar? Ghettooooo. This is where we come in. Our jars work great to keep your finest fresh and look good while doing it. The lids provide an airtight seal. Any hand-blown jar with a cork lid can’t compete with that. Our decorations aren’t just stickers either. We use high quality glass enamel decals. These are fired in a kiln at over 1000 degrees. Our jars are a high quality and stylish storage solution that’s affordable. Not to mention the ladies will be impressed.

Experiment: What do you want to know? Send me a message with questions about our business, industry, design or whatever. I’ll pick out a few of the best and drop some knowledge.

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.

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

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.

This is the ad that will be running in the December 08 Issue of High Times. I’ve been working on this for the past few days and I feel that it came together nicely. Both Matt and I are happy with the direction that our ads have been heading lately. Lots of white space with a nice photo. Everything I have been designing for the past year has tended to be a bit busy. I’ve been showing a lot more graphic restraint lately. The primary factor has been my new camera.(sony a350) This has allowed me to take much more professional photos. The inclusion of prop weed into the photos has also added an extra punch to our ads. Yes this is my job. Taking pictures of jars with wonderful inside of them.

The trade show also requires a new catalog. This is easily our nicest wholesale catalog to date. We’re very happy with the outcome. Matt’s favorite part is the “printed with soy ink” logo in the bottom corner of the cover. I didn’t think he’d even go for it, but he loved it. We’re so eco-savvy.

Along with the catalog came several banners and an entirely new booth setup. It was definitely the biggest presence that we’ve ever had at a show. Below you can see the catalog and a picture of the booth.

Something that I’m also curious about is the amount of people reading this blog. Who are you 147 people this week? I’m sure I know some of you personally, but I surely do not have that many friends. I’m a dick after all. I guess when you have close to 5000 friends on myspace some of them are bound to read what you write. It makes me wonder if what I’m writing is any good. This is myspace, does it even matter? Do people really care about what I design for us? I guess I really don’t care if people think it’s good or not. I just do it because I can and I like to write. It gives anyone who’s interested a look into the design process at 420 Jars. We’re really unique in the fact that one of the owners (me) is a designer. It definitely gives us an edge. I suppose that I’m doing something right. 147 readers this week can’t be wrong.