Quick housekeeping 🧹 

If you missed last week’s email about creating viral products, you can find that here.

Down with Dropbox

Look. we're all busy and tired.

But if you want the accolades of being a CrEaTiVe, you need to do the boring stuff too.

Air gets it. In fact, they get it so much that they took to the streets at an Adweek conference the other day to protest the hours lost to time suck tools like Dropbox and Google Drive.

There's a reason why bangin' brands like Graza, Sweetgreen, Pattern, Native, and more, use Air—

• Create workspaces for any project

• Find content lightening fast with AI-tagged everything

• Collect, share, and approve documents and files in one place

Send Dropbox to the retirement center with Napster and AOL.

Seriously, they made a retirement center for it.

Sign up and speak to someone from Air team and they'll hook you up with 3 months free to play around (while supplies last!) AND the official Silicon Gables Retirement Center for Old Software crispy white tee.

A nod to great brick-and-mortar signage

We’re creating another report, this time covering retail and what makes a truly great retail experience.

And whether it’s a popup or permanent space, signage is the first thing people see, so having a stand-out sign to lock your eyes in is key.

Here’s a teaser of some baller signage we love—and more examples when we drop the report 🙂 

Nitty Gritty Store, Stockholm

Ostrya Base Camp, Montreal

Goodhood, London

Open Studio, Stockholm

Madhappy, Los Angeles

Goodthing, Tokyo

Brand-to-product crossovers that make sense

Clothes and music—a timeless linkup.

Adsum NYC collaborates with German brand ELAC Audio to create a delightful speaker. Is it pricey? Yes. Is it beautiful? Also yes.

Personally, I love it when brands find ways to collaborate with other brands on products that have an indirect (or adjacent) connection to them.

There’s a difference between logo slapping and a collab that’s aligned.

Kitchen sink

Remixing heritage brands

For all the flack heritage and luxury brands get for making “logo updates” 99% of them just suck. But what Lacoste is doing with their logo/icon variants right now is brilliant, and it’s something to consider for all brands.

From single SKU to product expansion

Starting as a single SKU brand is the way to go. It gives you time to create, iterate, and refine. Once you nail whatever your hero product is, it’s time to expand. Graza is a prime example of this at play.

Fun links to dive into:

A conversation with designer Benjamin Edgar Gott, interview by Sprezza

A discussion with Ben about design, creativity, being a multi-disciplinarian, his friendship with the late Virgil , and more.

Snaxshot’s GrocerGram is a wonderful product that houses a directory of establishments supporting new and emerging CPG brands.

Naming your brand 101 — a guide

This week in our 30 Days of Building a Brand Series, Oren dives into brand naming.

You can watch the full-length YouTube video covering trademarking, SEO considerations, vibes, and more here…

Resources I mention in the video:

• TESS - Government trademark search system (free)

• BrandSnag - Social media handle checker (free)

• Ahrefs - SEO research tool (paid)

• Domai.nr - Search creative handles

• Namecheap - Domain registrar with solid search

• Thesaurus - The GOAT

Into the archives

Oren posted a video on some of our favorite archives and reference websites.

• Future Forms: Collection of vintage industrial design

• Archive PDF: Fashion scans

• Eye Candy: Video shot type library

• Cover Junkie: Magazine cover library

• Love the Work More: Award-winning Cannes work, cataloged

We’re building a similar database and archive website that houses all our favorite visuals, campaigns, tools, and creative resources in one place.

Check out the first iteration here!

We’ll try to update this a few times a month so you have creative references to draw from.