Brand Tone: empowering, whimsical, knowledgeable, inclusive, community driven, rebellious, human
Work: Brand Identity
Kate Stevens’, CEO of Lila Luckie’s, professional background as an organizer began with her work on the Obama campaign, and ultimately landed her in the labor movement. Making sure people's voices are heard and honored is a big part of Kate's ethos.
The story behind the brand name is a complex and complicated one that connects Kate's life story. From her challenging relationship with her grandmother, Lila Luckie, to her rebellious youth, organizing unions and making sure people's voices are heard. It all feeds into the vision of how Kate sees running her business.
This is what I looked to capture in the brand identity. With core values that include knowledgeable customer service, inclusivity, awareness, education and community, I needed to make sure that the brand feels accessible as well. Or in Kate's own words: not elitist.
Lila Luckie’s is a New York based cannabis dispensary (coming soon) committed to serve its clients, employees and community. With the aim of lifting the stigma around cannabis use, Kate wanted to communicate her own fiery passion through the brand identity.
Kate is not just selling cannabis, she's creating an experience from the moment they walk through the door. Kate wants people to be seen, heard and belong. She wanted to make sure people come back for the vibe. I made sure I had that reflected in the brand’s fonts, colors, and composition as well as part of that experience. I wanted to make it bold, inclusive, warm AND human.
The logotype uses a distressed style font in all caps symbolizing Kate’s rebellious, anti-capitalist, equity conscious, grassroots approach in conjunction with the hand quality, organic and tactile feel. The distressed font also represents legacy and is a bridge between Kate’s challenging relationship with her grandmother, the creation of Lila Luckie’s and what Kate stands for. The font is condensed so it can fit in large or small spaces. The orange diamond over the letter “I” is the guiding collective North Star for us all to find our own authentic path. The logotype comes in two versions: horizontal and stacked.
The primary logo is made up of the two “L’s” in Lila Luckie’s logotype positioned horizontally.
In the horizontal position it looks like a path and represents the journey each person takes in life. The secondary logo, the orange diamond, symbolizes the collective North Star guiding us on our path to healing and personal evolution.
The tagline was inspired by the logo resembling and symbolizing a path, Find Your Path.
We also came up with three words to reflect Lila Luckie’s value: Conscious Cannabis Community. These words are used in a logo lockup as a supporting graphic.
The primary and secondary colors add personality and instant recognizability to a brand. These colors were intentionally chosen in collaboration with Kate and represent the colors she likes most and provided connection, contrast and depth to the brand system.
Kate quickly put the brand system to use using the brand guidelines I provided. A brand guideline includes the brand usage rules, design explanation, misuses and visual examples of the graphics for social media platforms, merchandise, stationery, and digital platforms. Furthermore, a cannabis website design firm used the graphics and brand guidelines I created to build a landing page on brand https://lilaluckies.com/.
Working with BE-NA was a beautiful experience unto itself. Being a new business owner and budding entrepreneur, I knew little about the branding process and was struggling to effectively communicate my vision for Lila Luckie's.
Bina was able to take me on an exploratory journey like no other on our discovery call. Bina's questions helped me reveal the essence of all I wished to communicate about my business and the end result was the creation of a visual embodiment of the true heart and soul of Lila Luckie's.
Cannabis is a complicated industry as is the story behind Lila Luckie's. Named after my grandmother, BE-NA's ability to take my complicated relationship with her and weave my own transformational journey with her into my brand is something I can confidently say, no other firm could do.
In a crowded industry like Cannabis, being able to stand out and be different is vital to the success of my company and everything we are about at Lila Luckie's.
Thanks to the team at BE-NA, everything from our logo, to our color palette, to our finalized style guide is a true representation of our fundamental values and mission as a company.
And here is what Kate’s mentor, Christina De La Rosa, Co-Founder/CEO of The People’s Ecosystem, a leader in the cannabis industry has to say about Lila Luckie’s branding, “The cannabis industry is very saturated and somehow you have to stand out. Lila Luckie’s branding truly stands out in a crowd and tells the story of how Lila Luckie’s came to be”, Christina De La Rosa.