Better Weed — High Times 50th Anniversary: Full-page print advertisement for HoneyGrove and HoneyStash

Project: HoneyProjects “better weed” Print Advertisement
Publication: High Times 50th Anniversary Issue
Organisation: HoneyProjects
Brands: HoneyGrove and HoneyStash
Date: 2025
Role: Director of Marketing — concept and graphic design
Media: Full-page inside-cover print advertisement
Featured contribution: Creative concept, High Times cover collage, graphic design and print-ready artwork
Collaborators: Marketing team for initial brainstorming and review

I conceived and designed a full-page ad for High Times’ return to print. Built from five decades of magazine covers, the evolution-inspired image introduced HoneyGrove and HoneyStash to a national audience and became the basis for further advertising.

When High Times returned to print with its 50th anniversary issue in 2025, we secured a full-page inside-cover advertisement. For HoneyGrove and HoneyStash, two New Jersey dispensary brands, it was an opportunity to reach readers across the country and take part in a publication with a long place in cannabis culture.

My brief to myself was to make something a reader might tear out and put on their wall. The ad needed to introduce our brands, celebrate High Times’ history and express HoneyGrove’s “better weed” line in one memorable image.

After brainstorming with the marketing team and exploring several directions, I developed a play on the familiar evolution sequence. I built each silhouette from selected High Times covers spanning the magazine’s history. The final figure carries a HoneyGrove bag, with smoke rising into the brand mark. Large, brightly coloured “better weed” lettering gives the page its immediate impact, while the HoneyGrove and HoneyStash logos and QR code provide a way to discover the brands.

I executed the design myself, from the final concept through layout, approvals and print-ready artwork, in about a week. The ad received a strong response, and the idea grew beyond the anniversary issue into further paid advertising. It remains a project I’m proud of because I was able to carry a marketing objective through to a finished piece of design that works on its own terms.