BEN'S BEST BLNZ
WHEN BEN & JERRY’S COFOUNDER Ben Cohen wanted to create a visual identity for his new cannabis venture, Ben’s Best Blnz (B3), he turned to Eddie Opara, a partner at design firm Pentagram. The resulting imagery, visible on all B3 products, including the Blended Slosmokes (low-thc pre-roll boxes) and tins containing Full Spectrum vapes, eschews the familiar green, leafy tropes for vivid oranges and pinks, and typography inspired by protest graphics. “The colors, the symbolism, the typography— everything has a reason,” says Opara.
B3’s mission is to right the wrongs of the War on Drugs, which have disproportionately targeted Black people. Registered as a nonprofit, its proceeds are distributed to Nuleaf Project’s grants for Black cannabis entrepreneurs, the Last Prisoner Project, and the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance.
Opara and his team chose to highlight the work of Black designers in B3’s typography. Three typefaces from Tré Seals’s font foundry Vocal Type are nods to historic demonstrations: Bayard was inspired by protester signs from the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; Martin, by the “I Am a Man” messaging of the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike; and Eva, by banners from a 1957 women’s voting rights demonstration in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Another typeface, Halyard, created by Darden Studio, took its inspiration from road signs and grave markers in Brooklyn and the northeast U.S.
B3’s tins are also adorned with quotes from freedom fighters such as Angela Davis and Nelson Mandela, and artwork by multimedia artist Dana Robinson and Opara himself. The tins, Opara says, are designed to be collected, vivid reminders of those wrongly harmed by the War on Drugs.