Inspiration Driven

This afternoon, I posted on the Machine Zealots' Facebook Page that I had driven by an Aspen White Hawkeye STI, and we exchanged waves out our windows. There was a sense of camaraderie, a brotherhood, and definitely an exclusive mutual feeling the STI owners share.

This reminded me of the Fraternity of STI, which started when the 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI was released. It was one of Subaru's marketing campaigns to make the STI owners feel like they were in, well, a fraternity. They sold t-shirts and stickers for this club, so this gave me the desire to create a t-shirt design of my own.

At the beginning I had wanted to display the slogan, "Join the Brotherhood". This was obviously played off of the Fraternity of STI theme. However, it soon came to my attention that it was too shallow, and maybe even childish. With the help of some of you guys, I think I finally decided on something that hit the mark.

To be honest, I even questioned myself if there was a need for a slogan. I turned off the text, and it just felt empty. The text should be small enough on the t-shirt, so it wouldn't be visually distracting, yet it still gives the right energy overall. The words, "Inspiration. Driven." are just two words that I think describe an STI. Though you may think there are a hundred other words that could describe the STI, I felt these two words also described the overall design. Or at least, that's how I felt when I was designing it.

I posted this image on some Subaru forums and the general feedback, other than the slogan, were that they liked the design, but didn't know what it was. Well the design concept was simple, I chose to focus on one of the characteristics of the STI, the kick you feel when on boost. I started off the design with an image of the STI's turbocharger. If you are looking at the image, you are actually staring at the turbocharger dead on. The turbo was then treated to look like it's pulling in air. Obviously, also treated with super high contrast, so you lose the image of the turbo completely. The rest is just an abstract representation of the forced induction process. I wanted to express grittiness, power, chaos, but also show form, elegance and beauty. This is just the essence of how an STI can be represented in my mind. In the end however, my goal was to create an image that could catch the attention of others. Hopefully, this does the trick for some people.

I will make these shirts and hoodies available soon. I'm just deciding which color I want printed for myself. There will be three color variations (variations on the STI logo only): STI's Cherry Blossom Red, Monster Energy's Lime Green, and White for that extra stealthy look.

Thanks for all those who participated in helping us create the slogan!