A few years ago, escape rooms were the up-and-coming new activity that became popular very quickly (they’re my absolute favorite). Following that came axe-throwing bars. Now we have a new concept for a great night out: rage rooms.
Simply put, rage rooms are places you can go to destroy things if you’re feeling angry, need to let off some steam, or you’re just in the mood to smash plates and printers. There are not many that exist yet nationwide, but I’m sure once the pandemic is over and when more people catch on, it will be a popular attraction.
To put my visual design skills to the test, I thought it would be a good challenge to develop branding and identity for a rage room because, why not?
The first thing I did was write down any words or phrases associated with anger or rage. Some things that came to mind were blow off steam, flip out, and see red. The one that stuck out to me, however, was the last straw.
I did a bit of research as to where the phrase came from, and it’s based on “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” I knew I wanted to include straw, or something like it, to play off of the phrase. However, I also needed to somehow add that it was related to anger and not literally the last piece of straw.
Given that the concept is to break things, I tried to include something being broken. There are many ways to do this obviously so I brainstormed what the most universal symbol of breaking something is. The first thing that came to my mind was snapping a pencil in half. Me being me, I actually broke a pencil (you know, in the name of science) to see how it would split and also to experience what it felt like to break something.
This seemed like the easiest way to convey the message, so my next step was to pick a letter that best resembles a piece of straw, or pencil, which was the letter t. I had started with mimicking the broken edges of the pencil with the t, but it was proving difficult and didn’t look that great when the logo was made smaller. So I simplified the breaking point by adding lines to indicate that the t snapped in half.
Picking a font was hard because I wanted something that was strong and rigid, and gave off a feeling of anger. After much searching, I came across this, which reminded me of someone trying to hold it together but is slowly cracking apart until…. the last straw.
I was going back and forth about the colors to use, but the combinations I was coming up with didn’t reflect the emotion I wanted. I so restarted the process by remembering color theory. Red can signify many things, one of which is anger. Therefore, I made the broken t red to illustrate the anger that comes from breaking something. I decided to leave the rest of the text black because it makes a strong contrast, and black in itself is a bold and intense color.
After going through this process and creating a logo I felt comfortable with, I now feel like opening a rage room business. I mean, I’ve already invested in the logo, and there’s not one around here so… why not?
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