Blast Study
The ‘blast’ symbol can be found throughout the VRS® brand identity. It’s organic shape is often placed in the center of VRS and EXP and has evolved entirely over the course of 2 years. When developing a brand, a common question that comes up is ‘how can you create something thats iconic and resonates with the viewer?’ For me that element is the BLAST.
My first recollection of the shape was during early saturday morning cartoons and animation houses of the 40’s-60’s. Often associated with violence, the shape would appear largely during a dynamite explosion or from an exaggerated oversized pan slap. As I started to see more and more of this ‘pow’ or ‘boom’ motif I noticed how defined the shape started to evolve especially from one show specifically, Tom and Jerry.
These organic gestures contain curved bends that meet sharp edges, leaving space to produce numerous variations. This format felt like the perfect motif to use for a project and brand identity. Over the corse of three days I developed various compositions of the shape and explored weight and balance. The final result was over twenty different shapes with sharp edges ending between eight and fifteen points. The silhouettes started to resemble abstract starships or even the bite marks out of an apple. Through this practice I played with both free floating Blasts as well as surface blast which can be seen cut in half from the ground or ceiling.
Settling on the final blast came down to the center space and its hollow weight of the outline stoke.
Applying the blast mark to materials like woven tags, twill caps and even T-shirts was the ultimate test to see
if the shape could register as a mark alongside typography.
The VRS Blast cap can be purchased here
