A hand-drawn lowrider features on the packaging of Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre’s premixed drinks brand, envisioned by designer Ini Archibong to “encapsulate the spirit” of 1990s West Coast hip hop.
The recently launched drink is named Gin & Juice after the Grammy-nominated, Dr Dre-produced song from Snoop Dog’s 1993 debut album Doggystyle – a poster child of the G-funk genre popularised by the two artists.
Nigerian-American designer Ini Archibong, who also hails from Los Angeles, developed the graphic design for the drink to reflect the cultural influence of their music.
“The goal with the design was to encapsulate the spirit and era of the West Coast when the original Gin and Juice track was released,” Archibong told Dezeen. “I wanted to transmit the reverence and unique culture of the era that has now become known worldwide.”
Central to this is the parental advisory logo, smack dab in the middle of the can, which according to Archibong is “emblematic” of the time.
“Bringing in the symbol of parental advisory is to remind people how intrusive, new, fresh and frightening this art form was at the time,” he said.
Wrapped around the bottom of the can is a lowrider, hand-drawn by Los Angeles illustrator Wayne Johnson and rendered in four different colours to correspond to the different Gin & Juice flavours – green for citrus, red for melon, purple for passionfruit and orange for apricot.
The low-slung car nods to the West Coast cruising culture described in Snoop Dogg’s song, where he describes “rolling down the street, smoking indo, sipping on gin and juice”.
In contrast with the vibrantly coloured lowrider, the drink can itself is rendered in plain white to present the car as if it were being immortalised in a museum.
“There’s a feeling of minimal perfection that I wanted to instil into the product,” Archibong said. “Dre inspired the minimal aesthetic, with his approach and album art, alongside the sonic quality of his music.”
Gin & Juice is the first release from Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre’s drinks company, with more set to follow.
“Together, we always try to create magic,” Dr Dre said. “We’re having fun, being creative. And everything about this product is really us. There’s passion behind it and friendship and love and a culture.”
The two artists have also separately launched a number of other business ventures including an edible marijuana range and popular headphone company Beats by Dre.
