What happens when you blend an iconic, adult-oriented science fiction/fantasy comic brand with cannabis? Welcome to the Cannaverse! For this unusual collaboration we drew upon the characters from 4 popular story lines and the cult-classic animated movie, Heavy Metal, from 1981. The characters on the outer box needed to be subtle to avoid attracting the under-21 crowd, but the interiors are full of colorful artwork from each series, and feature a pull-out insert that contains a scene or character from the series. Heavy Metal's team created the 5 variations of the Heavy Metal logo which were used for each product line. There are 5 collections of products: flower and pre-rolls, blunts, vapes, concentrates, and edibles.
Some of the packaging could not contain a collectible insert, including the flower jars, chocolate pouches, and concentrate boxes. For those I created a set of three related collector cards that budtenders hand to the customer at the time of purchase.
Below is a sampling of the packaging and related items that led up to the official launch in April, 2023. All this was complated under a condensed timeline of six months from concept to release in a number of dispensaries across Massachusetts. We attended one indoor and one outdoor trade show prior to launch.
