Be the highest version of yourself
Navy Veteran Branden Carcamo is trying to educate and break stigmas.
As lead graphic designer for elevated cannabis collective brand The Real High Class, the Los Angeles native strives to be mindful of messaging when creating.
Carcamo is conscious of the negative stereotypes that cannabis can carry and he and TRHC are trying to be the living proof that people around cannabis culture can be productive and even leading figures in their community.
For this reason, Carcamo and TRHC’s owner Darren Bitterolf (the pair have known each other since high school) have taken great pains to give back to their community in Pomona and where TRHC is based in Long Beach by doing cleanups, charity drives, and t-shirt giveaways. They’ve also gone out of the way to give a platform to young artists from those communities by featuring them in the TRHC magazine along with a Hip-Hop compilation album they’ll drop in the coming months.
Carcamo uses all the unique qualities of Los Angeles as inspiration for his work, citing the vibrancy and colors of his upbringing in the city as the palette he draws from.
“We grew up around everything bold, from a long line of artists and craft makers, even the personalities are bold and it translates through the art,” Carcamo explained.
And despite TRHC only being around since December 2020, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. So much so, that aside from the merch, podcasts, and magazine TRHC offers, they’ll produce their first event called the Link Up in July.
“It’s no secret that everybody looks to the West Coast and Los Angeles for their style and we feel like we’re right at the center of that,” Carcamo confessed. “We want to bring attention to that and involve our community. We just want to help our people.”