What does The New School have to do with Snoop Dogg, the name-changing, weed-smoking, Tanqueray-sipping West Coast rapper?
The connecting factor is Pentagram, an elite design company with a host of well known clientele. Pentagram recently designed Snoop Dogg’s new line of weed products and is also responsible for redesigning an expensive custom font for The New School.
New Schoolers, tech junkies and design aficionados were not impressed. Outrage about the finished product came in the form of student tweets, Instagram posts and sulky conversations by those who worried that their tuition dollars were being spent on a frivolous font update – and an ugly one at that.
The new type was called a host of unpleasant names including “typographical trainwreck” by San Francisco based tech entrepreneur and the former editor in chief of AOL’s Engadget, Ryan Block.
But Pentagram doesn’t always get it wrong.
Emily Oberman, a partner for the company, who creates graphics for Saturday Night Live, and The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, also designed Snoop Dogg’s latest business venture – Leafs by Snoop – which is none other than a brand of cannabis goods.
The products, which include “Dogg Treats” in a host of flavors including “Peanut Butter Gems,” might pack a punch, but hidden beneath a box covered in pretty colors and tropical designs that appear as if they might adorn swim trunks, they don’t look like they do.
They are well designed, embodying a sophisticated, beachy vibe. Think palm trees, set in front of a late afternoon sky – this is for Snoop’s dark chocolate with almonds, and a school of fish on the packaging of the dark chocolate. In fact, according to Wired, the packaging makes the products look less like weed, and more like artisanal candy.
Snoop Dogg’s smokable treats made their debut in Denver, Colorado – also known as The Mile High City – and can be purchased in the state, where they continue to generate excitement in consumers.
The controversy behind Pentagram’s New School redesign, on the other hand, seems to be fading from memory, as the school’s logo garners fewer and fewer angry squints from students.
Maybe, in reparation efforts, Pentagram should gift some of Snoop’s “Leafs” to students. A couple bites of a “Dogg Treat” just might make the New School’s new font look a heck of a lot better.
