Rips Rolling Papers

Sketchbook Scamps

The project began with detailed sketchbooks, exploring narrative pacing, character interaction, and composition for the Rips Rolling Papers road trip story. Early scamps captured comic storytelling, experimenting with panel layouts and visual hierarchy to create collectible packaging illustrations. Each pencil study focused on balance, contrast, and clarity, ensuring the hand-drawn narrative could translate seamlessly to ink.

These sketches guided brand storytelling, aligning with comic-style campaigns and creative marketing objectives. The process emphasized consistency across all panels while allowing playful experimentation with gestures and environment. Iterating on each concept ensured the final illustrations would engage viewers, strengthen brand storytelling, and create collectible comic art that resonates with the audience.

RIPS started life as a family-run printers in the early 1970s. In 1972 RIPS capitalized on the emerging hairdressing industry and started to produce perm papers. They soon became the largest supplier of perm papers on the market with the brand, "Pollié".

I entered a contest held by Rips Rolling Papers, held in conjunction with The Marketing Farm in Cheltenham, to create some limited edition packaging for Rips’s summer promotion, called The Great Rip Up. My pitch that accompanied my entry I told Rips of my larger vision for the project. I thought that the promotion could be widen by creating a 5 panel series which would then tell a story in a similarly ambiguous fashion, hopefully this would create a collectable series of packaging.

“...Launched in 1982, RIPS has a distinctive packaging design that is stylish, classy and synonymous with the rolling paper...

Pencils to Product

Rough pencil studies evolved into inked comic panels, highlighting texture, perspective, and story clarity for Rips Rolling Papers collectible packaging. Each scene—from VW camper rides to campfires and coastal escapes—was carefully hand-drawn and inked, maintaining consistency across panels while reinforcing narrative flow. Panels were developed to support storytelling through comics while aligning with branded marketing objectives and collectible campaign design.

Lettering, hatching, and dynamic line work enhanced storytelling impact. Panel sequencing guided viewers through the road trip narrative, producing cohesive, visually engaging illustrations that strengthened brand campaigns and comic-style marketing, while making each packet a collectible experience.

Final Product

The Rips Rolling Papers project reimagines collectible packaging through hand-drawn comic illustrations that tell a road trip narrative, blending humor, romance, and travel adventure. This project spans packaging design, storyboarded comic panels, and branded marketing collateral—crafted to enhance visual storytelling, drive engagement, and elevate brand presence across retail and promotional channels. Each illustration aligns with the Rips Rolling Papers identity while adapting to varied audiences, ensuring consistency across limited-edition campaigns and collectible series.

The work applies visual hierarchy, structured composition, and narrative sequencing to create scalable assets that translate from pencil sketches to final inked artwork. Principles such as contrast, balance, rhythm, and negative space guide each layout, while pacing and panel progression support storytelling across formats. From packaging front covers to full-panel comic sequences, the outcome is a cohesive design language that enhances clarity, strengthens brand equity, and delivers high-impact creative marketing for Rips Rolling Papers collectible campaigns.

I wanted to tell a story of the road trip, with certain markers of the trip which would be combined with a love story. I wanted the packets to become collectable items which their viewer would be able to read and also engage with the story by filling the blanks in themselves.