HoneyGrove Elmwood Park: Retail environment, launch campaign and grand opening | New Jersey

Project: HoneyGrove Elmwood Park
Organisation: HoneyGrove / HoneyProjects
Location: 294 Route 46 East, Elmwood Park, New Jersey
Date: Grand opening, 29 August 2026
Role: Director of Marketing — store concept contributions, campaign development and launch marketing
Collaborators: PJ Redden, project manager; Dave Valese, Chief Visionary Officer; Madison Ortiz, graphic designer; Olga Muzician, muralist; events team, media buyer and videographer
Partners: Weedmaps and MAPS
Media and methods: Miro concept boards, creative briefs, digital and social advertisements, sponsorship deck, event-screen content and grand-opening coverage
Featured contribution: Coordinated the Gratitude mural process, helped develop the staged launch campaign and led marketing for the grand opening
Outcome: More than $10,000 in grand-opening sponsorship

I contributed to the new store’s creative direction, coordinated its exterior mural and helped develop a staged campaign that moved from “coming soon” to grand opening. I then led the launch marketing across paid and social media, sponsorship, partner coordination and event content.

HoneyGrove’s Elmwood Park opening brought together several parts of my work as Director of Marketing. I contributed to the store’s design direction, helped turn original artwork into a visual identity for the location, developed the launch campaign with our designer and coordinated marketing for the grand opening.

During the build-out, I used Miro boards to gather references and layout ideas for discussions with project manager PJ Reddan and Chief Visionary Officer Dave Valese. I designed the 12-by-10-foot backlit pylon sign at the edge of the property, working with its manufacturer on the HoneyGrove branding, “better weed” message and directional arrow. The sign faces Route 46 East, and gaining local council approval to include “better weed” was an important win for us.

I also designed and produced the store’s central floor graphic: a roughly five-by-five-foot HoneyGrove design influenced by sacred geometry and mandalas. I worked with the vendor to carry it into the finished, glossy epoxy floor. Each of our retail stores has a signature floor marking; this one gives Elmwood Park its own distinctive centrepiece.

I coordinated the design and feedback process with Olga Muzician as she created the exterior Gratitude mural. We then licensed elements of Olga’s floral artwork for wider brand use. I worked with graphic designer Madison Ortiz on the brief to vectorise the flowers; she developed them into a reusable floral system that appeared on T-shirts, in-store graphics, social posts and screens. What began as a mural became a visual thread running through the store and its marketing.

Inside the dispensary, I worked with artist Chris Dyer on an original mural he created on site. I coordinated photography of the finished wall and briefed Madison to vectorise the artwork for use on licensed merchandise. These projects gave us original art for the space and ways to carry that art into materials customers could take home.

For the opening campaign, I worked with Madison and the wider team on a story told in stages. The “coming soon” artwork showed a bright sky torn open to reveal a psychedelic universe, with Route 46 signs and a car leading towards the new dispensary. At launch, that universe was fully revealed through floating landscapes, crystals, aliens, cannabis imagery and details drawn from HoneyGrove, including Big Dave and the Gratitude mural. I developed briefs, coordinated iterations and feedback, and helped carry the concept across advertising and social content. Madison created the finished campaign artwork.

I led marketing coordination for the grand opening, working with our media buyer on Meta and Google advertising and planning social content before and after the event. I developed the sponsorship deck and coordinated sponsor communications, helping bring in more than $10,000 for the celebration. I also worked with the events team on promotion, created content for the in-store screens and coordinated a videographer to capture the day. The opening brought together partners including Weedmaps and MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.

Across the sign, floor graphic, murals, campaign and opening event, my role was to connect the people and ideas behind the new store and make them recognisable as HoneyGrove, from the Route 46 sightline through to the details inside.