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Happy Wednesday! This is our sixth FREE GAME newsletter! You’ll find FREE GAME on creative tools for your brand, a case study on Trikko, behind Polo at the Olympics, and more! Read until the end for tips on stealing like an artist + a book recommendation.

Top Creative Tools for Any Brand

Find Superline’s Instagram Post on this topic here

Here’s are the Top 6 Creatives Tools EVERY Creative Entrepreneur needs in their bag:

For Beginners

1. Canva: This is best for beginners and is the easiest platform to use to create any kind of social media graphic, presentation, or design concept.

2. Capcut: If you have zero video editing experience, this is the most intuitive video editing tool to learn the basics.  

Best Tools

1. Adobe Photoshop: This one’s mandatory and is used to create, enhance, or edit images and art. It offers WAY MORE customizations to design exactly what you want across all parts of your brand

2. Adobe Illustrator: For any communications with manufacturers or factories, you’ll need Illustrator to create your tech packs (a blueprint to produce a garment)

3. Premiere Pro: The most popular and used video editing application tool to make your video content (Reels, TikTok, YouTube)

4. Figma: Best app for creating any sort of digital design or template for websites, instagram posts, or digital products (Superline uses it to create templates for feed posts)

Trikko Case Study

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, this clothing brand Trikko has definitely been on your radar. They’ve been absolutely popping off and are making millions…but how are they doing it?

Social media is becoming more saturated than ever so here’s some free game on what we can learn from the founder Moad: The secret to standing out is creating a Signature Style. 

Here’s Superline “Signature Style”:

E + the team as the faces of Superline and Bold Yellow fonts for every video. 

For our content formats we do interviews, head talking videos, and anything entertaining we find related to the culture.

Now for Trikko they have two very unique things they use:

1. AI Voice Overs (using this tool)

2. Black Mask

This worked because AI was all people were talking about online once ChatGPT launched. 

He was able to find a way to introduce a broader trend in the world into his content. Finding a way to reach broader appeal with his content helped him go viral and reach an audience larger than just people interested in streetwear.

And for the mask, it created an element of shock and mystery which kept you watching to find out who he was. 

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Learn more

Concrete Boys Takeover: Collabs with Nike + Denim Tears

Y’all see this whole Concrete Boys thing that Lil Yachty is starting? It came on Superline’s radar once we saw collabs with brands like Denim Tears and Nike and we think this is a genius move by Yachty…

For those who don’t know, Lil Yachty created a rap collective with Camo!, Dc2trill, and Draft Day which is bringing back the feeling of classic rap groups from the 90s (think Wu-Tang Clan or N.W.A.)

Concrete Boys is a movement and that’s why it made perfect sense for them to start their own clothing brand and do these major brand collabs. 

The one thing that Lil Yachty has that most don’t is a platform. He’s leveraging his existing audience and connections to build something greater than him that can outlast the short-lived relevance that most rappers have. 

And more importantly, he found a way to create the feeling of community in his marketing. One of the key pillars of online marketing in today’s world. 

The History behind Ralph Lauren x Olympics 

Everyone’s talking about the 2024 Olympics in France and with over 10,500 athletes and 32 sports in the program our main question is who’s outfitting all these athletes?

After doing some research we found that the official outfitter of Team USA was Polo Ralph Lauren (read Ralph Lauren’s 50-year timeline) starting in 2008 at the Olympic Summer Games Beijing. 

Now, 16 years later, we want to study this partnership and why it was a perfect partnership..

The first reason is financial support, the Olympics receives ZERO government funding so corporate sponsors like Ralph Lauren are the financial lifeline of the operation to cover training and travel for the athletes.

This benefits Ralph Lauren in two ways: brand visibility and brand associations. 

• For brand visibility, showcasing Ralph Lauren on a global stage to billions of viewers of The Olympics provides HUGE exposure to the brand. 

• For brand associations, aligning Ralph Lauren with the Olympics elevates the brand’s image as a prestigious and patriotic brand.

Click here to see the official Team USA x Ralph Lauren fits across swimming, skating, gymnastics, track, and more

How the Kendrick x Drake beef blew up the clothing brand Ghetto Rodeo

You’ve all heard about the Kendrick x Drake beef, but how did this beef end up blowing up this clothing brand Ghetto Rodeo and changing the life of the founder Brian Suacedo. This story is the realest example there is that it takes ONE big break to make it happen. 

Half way through Kendrick’s music video, Not Like Us, Kendrick’s seen dancing and repping a hat with the words “Ghetto Rodeo” on it. With >90M videos on the YouTube video, this provided the team at Ghetto Rodeo the big break they were waiting for and they made the most of it….

Minutes after the music video dropped, Brian posted a video of his team’s reaction to the clip on Ghetto Rodeo’s Instagram which got over 2 MILLION views. 

Now converting this attention to loyal customers is the hard part and Brian did this through Ghetto Rodeo’s unique positioning (read this to see how to do the same) as a Hispanic-Inspired brand which authentically spoke to a specific audience: 

“Ghetto Rodeo is a clothing and lifestyle brand embracing L.A. street wear as high-end fashion, pushing against negative perceptions of baggy clothing and its associations with gang culture.”

The importance of “Stealing Like An Artist”

We’ve been getting a lot of DMs asking for advice on the clothing game and I want to talk about the most important thing in the long run for any brand: The Product

Jim Jarmusch put it best, “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.”

Here’s how you Steal like a Artist:

1. Never Steal from One Source: Take inspiration from various sources (ex. art, music, architecture) and combine that all into your own creative vision

2. Immerse Yourself into History: Stop focusing on what’s “trending”, immerse yourself into the culture and history of your interests to understand the underlying nuances and meanings behind it all to tell greater stories for your brand 

Integrate Your Style: After taking inspiration, find a way to bring your creative vision into the mix, this is what creates something that’s considered “original”