Why 48North and Blok Design Are on a Design High

Normalizing cannabis — and stripping it of its stoner culture stigma — is a feat for licensed producers. One approach is to encircle it with facts, and cultivate a contemporary, inclusive lifestyle with all the trappings.

“We’ve had a strong focus on creating a community, educating future consumers and trying to undo some of the harmful propaganda that stereotyped cannabis during prohibition,” says Kirsten Gauthier, creative director of 48North, an Ontario cannabis company. The plethora of disposable Dazed and Confused-style accessories in the marketplace doesn’t help.

Enter Vanessa Eckstein of Blok Design. “We moved away from what a cannabis product looked like in the past and took it into a place where it can be appreciated as a unique object in our everyday lives.” And so, for F8, the accessory brand she and her team conceived for 48North, Blok reinvented the ubiquitous grinder. “We developed it in brass with the values of longevity and timelessness both in design and materiality,” says Eckstein. “Its texture was inspired by nature and the sensuality of its lines suggest the movement and functionality of the grinder itself.”

Measuring seven centimetres in diameter, the toothy five pound–accessory is not to be stashed away for fear of judgement but rather, as Eckstein says, “meant to be held in your hands with a sense of belonging.”

For more info visit: blokdesign.com and 48North.com

Originally published in our Best New Homes & Condos issue 2019 as One Thing.