Supergreat Swag

Branding, Merchandise Design

Client: Supergreat App
Roles: Art direction, merchandise design, photography, styling
Year: 2020

In February 2020, Supergreat began the process of creating custom merchandise for its users, and as the team's sole designer, I led and executed the entire process. Myself and the Supergreat team wanted to prioritize the quality of the pieces which is why we opted to look for more customizable avenues to ensure we could create the best possible products for the brand. We ended up working with CALA, a clothing and merchandise production platform that specializes in offering high-end templates in addition to custom cut and sew designs. 

The final pieces included a hoodie, a t-shirt, socks, two makeup bags, and a large oversized rubber tote-bag. The designs followed Supergreat’s main visual components with brightly colored and textured elements. I had such a fun time creating these pieces, and I really enjoyed learning about the manufacturing process. 

Socks

Inspired by colorful camouflage pants worn in the 90s and early 2000s, I wanted to create a textile pattern that could incorporate all of Supergreat’s saturated brand colors in a way that felt exciting and organic. Stemming from camouflage, I also looked at brush strokes, topographic maps, and heat maps as inspiration for organic shapes and various usages of color. 

The final design was a liquidy, “heat map” pattern, made as a custom jacquard knit with the Supergreat logo on the bottom of the sole and bordering the cuff. The designs were also created so that the socks were mismatched with different versions of the pattern. As a small Easter egg, when lined up together, the socks as a pair would create the full pattern. 

I often get compliments whenever I wear these socks, and I always feel a wave of pride knowing how challenging these truly were to accomplish.

“Normally my boss would say, ‘tell them they are pushing the limits of a sock knitting factory too far’ but to be honest it’s REALLY cool to see something so complex and colorful being done.”

-Operations Manager at CALA

Makeup Bags

I wanted to create a structured makeup bag to accommodate Supergreat’s community of beauty enthusiasts. A key feature of the bag is its unique bottom zipper compartment, designed for easy access to everyday beauty essentials or for flat products like eye shadow palettes. 

We produced two patterns, one inspired by bright fridge magnet letters using the Supergreat logo and another in a colorful rainbow gradient. These patterns were produced by custom printing canvas fabric. After many rounds of trial and error, we were able to finally create a print that accurately matched and blended the colors of the inital designs. As a result from printing our own fabrics, every bag that was produced was uniquely assembled with different cuts of the custom material. The differences are more apparent with the gradient bag, where each bag has a unique gradient combination.

The bags are lined in a deep purple polyester and have purple YKK zippers. The gradient bag also has “Supergreat” embroidered in white on the front. 

Tote Bag

As an exclusive gift for staff, we made an oversized bonded rubber tote bag, made of 100% PVC material, with heavy woven straps for the handles made of soft black nylon. The bag is a durable design with an inner and outer pocket for small essentials. The outer pocket has a teal accent YKK zipper, and the inner pocket and main compartment have dark purple YKK zippers. 

This bag was particularly challenging to get right, especially since many manufacturers were temporarily closed summer of 2020 due to Covid. But we were able to source a beautiful, high quality grape purple rubber material.

Hoodies & T-shirt

These garments were the only items we chose to create using CALA’s templates. One hoodie is a simple high-quality white with an embroidered “Supergreat Reviews” logo on the front, and the others, a t-shirt and an additional hoodie design, are a tie-dyed purple/pink.

Made with 100% cotton, each piece was individually hand dyed using a marble wash technique to create unique textures for every garment. The hoodie has “Supergreat” embroidered in bright white, while the t-shirt uses puff printing.