Marketing and promotional materials designed for Long Island’s premiere recreational dispensary.

As the first legal dispensary for recreational cannabis on Long Island, Strain Stars is a company that’s been breaking new ground since its founding in 2023. However, as the first legal dispensary for recreational cannabis on Long Island, Strain Stars has also faced obstacles as a result of the cultural baggage their main product gained during the 20th century. While Strain Stars has found massive success, it’s also garnered detractors—in particular, maintaining a presence on social media has become something of a Sisyphean task due to posts continuously getting flagged for deletion.

At its core, Strain Stars’ brand prioritizes clean, modern aesthetics above all else in order to stand out among a crowd of smoke shops that all hang posters of Rick and Morty characters smoking a bong in their windows. As the first legal dispensary in a distinctly red area of New York, I believe there’s a lot of value in subverting (or at the very least, not leaning into) prominent stereotypes surrounding cannabis. My aim with each deliverable was to bring a confident, dynamic, attention-grabbing edge that lives up to the star in Strain Stars.

Deliverables for this assignment included both print and digital marketing materials, designs for promotional merchandise, and motion graphics for social media.