The Designer’s Guide to Innovative Cannabis Packaging in 2023

Why 2023 forced cannabis packaging to grow up

By late 2023, the best cannabis packaging stopped trying to look rebellious. It started trying to look reliable. That was overdue.

Packaging moved closer to fragrance counters. It borrowed from pharmacy. It flirted with collectors’ editions. The era of the loud green leaf felt tired.

In December 2023, Packaging Digest ran its most read packaging design stories for the year. Cannabis edibles made the list alongside PepsiCo and Kimberly-Clark. That alone tells you where perception was heading.

What award juries rewarded in 2023

If you want a neat snapshot, read ADCANN’s 2023 packaging design finalists. The post was dated December 7, 2023. It was updated December 17, 2023.

Wyld’s Canadian compostable packs were called out as 100% biodegradable. The materials list is unusually specific. BioPBS. Wood pulp. Bio resins. Even the zippers and inks get a mention.

Freedom Cannabis took a very different route. Recyclable steel “Nitrotins”. A knowingly nostalgic tuna tin reference. ADCANN even repeats the shelf life claim as “months to years”.

The strongest through line was not colour. It was intent. Each pack had a clear point of view that survived the compliance clutter.

The compliance grid that dictates everything

Designers still pretend regulation is a late stage problem. In cannabis it’s the brief. Get it wrong and the work never reaches the shelf.

Filestage’s cannabis packaging piece lays out the designer’s reality in plain terms. Child-resistant packaging. Labelling and information. Restricted imagery. Material safety. Environmental pressure.

Even one US state summary makes the constraints feel physical. California’s Department of Cannabis Control describes child-resistant packaging routes. PPPA certification is one option. Heat sealed plastic at least 4 mil thick is another. The fine print becomes your layout grid.

This is why 2023 rewarded brands that treated compliance as typography. Not as an apology label slapped on top.

A practical compliance checklist that still leaves room for taste

Keep your compliance content in a system. Treat it like a fashion house treats size labels. It must be consistent across every product line.

• One information panel that never moves
• QR code area with generous quiet space
• Warnings in one type family only
• Artwork zone that can shrink without breaking the pack

Structural packaging became the real differentiator

In 2023, shape did what graphics could not. Shape creates memory even when the front panel is busy with mandated text.

ADCANN’s Cookies “Ice Cream Tub” is the obvious example. A flower pack built like a dessert container. The post mentions a semi opaque blue jar inside the tub. It is theatre with containment.

Dad Grass leaned into another familiar format. A cigarette pack silhouette. It cues ritual. It also signals discretion in a way a cartoonish pouch never can.

Jeeter went even further into gift culture. ADCANN notes holiday “naughty” and “nice” strains. The brand also used sports themed packs. In other words, it treated packaging like seasonal merchandising.

Three formats that quietly dominated 2023

None of these are new in packaging. They felt new in cannabis because they were executed with restraint.

Format	Why it worked in 2023	Design risk	Best use case
Rigid carton with insert	Luxury cue borrowed from fragrance	Too much empty space looks wasteful	Vapes. Capsules. Gift sets
Glass jar with secondary label system	Collectability. Shelf presence	Weight. Breakage. Cost	Flower. Premium small batch
Metal tin	Heritage feel. Reuse potential	Dents show quickly	Pre rolls. Flower. Limited editions

Sustainability got real in 2023

Sustainability claims used to be vague. In 2023, the better brands named materials. They also talked about waste like grown ups.

Wyld’s compostable packaging write up is unusually detailed. ADCANN states 100% biodegradable. It even lists adhesives and zippers. That level of specificity is persuasive.

Freedom Cannabis chose steel. It’s recyclable. It’s also emotionally familiar. The “tuna can” reference is a wink to legacy market habits. It doesn’t pretend cannabis sprang into existence in 2018.

The tricky truth is that compliant packaging can be material heavy. Child-resistant mechanisms rarely arrive as a single substrate miracle. A credible 2023 brief admitted trade offs then designed them beautifully.

My sceptical view on compostables

Compostable is not a free pass. If your customer cannot compost it, you’ve created a guilt token. It’s still better than performative green ink on a plastic clamshell.

If you want to claim compostable, show the spec. Name the substrate. Use plain language. Wyld did exactly that in the ADCANN write up.

Luxury cues moved from gimmick to discipline

Luxury packaging is not foil on everything. In cannabis, foil can look like a nightclub flyer. In 2023, the better work used premium cues like punctuation.

The NetMen Corp’s November 2, 2023 trend piece calls out soft touch finishes. Foil stamping. Embossing. It frames these as a way to reach wealthier buyers. That’s blunt. It’s also accurate.

Filestage points to brands that already look like beauty. Canndescent. Dosist. Beboe. The language is US centric. The visual lesson is universal.

My rule is simple. If the pack wouldn’t sit comfortably near a Diptyque candle, it’s not luxury. It’s decoration.

Luxury is often one decision

Choose one hero cue. Build everything else to support it. Don’t stack tricks.

Information design became a brand asset

Cannabis packaging has to carry facts. Potency. Batch numbers. Dates. Warnings. Designers who whinge about this are missing the point.

Filestage spells out what must be communicated. Product name. Potency. Dosage instructions. Warnings. Ingredients. Batch numbers. Manufacturing or expiration dates. That’s a lot of content for a small surface.

The NetMen Corp pushes the idea further. Highlight strain genetics. Show cannabinoid and terpene profiles. Describe aroma. Describe flavour. State intended effects. Consumers asked for this detail in 2023 because the category matured.

The best packs treated data like editorial design. Clear hierarchy. Legible type. Calm spacing. No hysteria. That’s also how you signal trust.

Copy tone matters more than people admit

Drop the stoner slang. Drop the fake medical claims. Write like a responsible apothecary. You can still be charming.

Anti counterfeit features entered the brief

Counterfeit risk is not a paranoid footnote. It becomes real the moment a brand has status. 2023 saw more brands plan for that future.

The Marijuana Packaging Solution 2023 trend post explicitly flags tactics to prevent theft and counterfeiting. It sits alongside practical points like child-resistant packaging and custom design demand.

The NetMen Corp also mentions security features to assure originality. That’s not romantic. It’s retail reality.

Security doesn’t need to look like a bank note. It can be discreet. A simple serialised label can be enough if the supply chain supports it.

• Serial numbers that match the batch system
• Tamper evident seals that tear cleanly
• Micro text inside a brand pattern
• Holographic mark used once per range

How general packaging design trends showed up in cannabis

Cannabis packaging doesn’t exist in a sealed jar. It borrows from FMCG. It borrows from beauty. It borrows from collectibles.

That’s why the Packaging Digest 2023 top ten matters. The list is not cannabis specific. It places cannabis edibles in the same attention economy as household names.

In 2023, this cross pollination showed up as bolder typography. It also showed up in limited editions. Star Trek novelty packaging is mentioned in the Packaging Digest summary. Cannabis took the same route with holiday packs and sports tie ins.

Designers who only look at dispensary shelves miss half the story. Look at Harrods beauty halls. Look at Japanese confectionery. Look at airline miniatures. Then translate those cues into compliant form.

A UK retail lens helps

Bond Street taught luxury brands one lesson. The customer forgives less than you think. If the pack feels cheap, the product feels suspect.

Production realities that shaped 2023 packaging

In 2023, designers had to accept the SKU explosion. Strain drops. Seasonal sleeves. Province by province tweaks. State by state compliance differences. That’s version control hell.

ADCANN’s write up on Cookies includes hard scale markers. Founded in 2010. First retail store in 2018. Expanded to 58 retail locations. Present in 18 markets across 6 countries. A brand of that size cannot treat packaging as a one off art project.

Packaging systems won. Modular dielines. Label architectures. Colour coding that survives photocopies. A shared typographic grid. These are unglamorous decisions. They are also the reason a range looks premium across hundreds of doors.

It’s also why review workflows became a design topic. Filestage is effectively selling that promise. Faster review. Fewer messy email chains. More controlled approvals.

Where designers still slipped in 2023

Some packs chased novelty at the cost of usability. Child-resistant doesn’t need to mean adult hostile. Convenience is part of premium.

A closing thought for designers building 2023 style packs today

2023 packaging didn’t reward the loudest brand. It rewarded the clearest one.

If you want your work to age well, borrow from luxury. Borrow from pharmacy. Keep the romance for the strain name.

If you need a tight set of references, start here. ADCANN. Packaging Digest. Filestage. Marijuana Packaging Solution. The NetMen Corp.