Behind the Design: The BE> Story

What is the origin story of the BE> concept?

When Tim started at VERVE as the company’s first Chief Design Officer in early 2021, he recognised that there was a little bit of a disconnect between the amazing company culture and what was being presented outside.

“VERVE has a great name, great logo, but this was this wasn’t being communicated through to customer.”

Tim’s pedigree is impressive, having started his career at Quicksilver then onto Nike where he worked with some of the best minds across design, marketing and branding and it’s this background that set the framework for his efforts at VERVE.

“The one thing that I've learned from those companies is that it's not about saying you sell the best product or you make the best gear, which we do, but selling the dream.

You want to motivate people to get out and be a part a community, so inspiring people to kind of light the fire within themselves rather than saying, hey, you're already on this journey. By the way, we make great gear and we want you to go out and be best version of yourself.”

The BE> concept was born from this idea that everyone can be greater than… This allows people to interpret the concept in their own way because everyone’s fitness journey is at a different point and inspired by different things. Form the elite Olympic level through to the first timer picking up a piece for the first time – everyone is competing against themselves.

“The VERVE internal culture is all about inspiration and overcoming challenges – I wanted to help project this to customers. We don't just make high performance gear for high performance athletes, we make high performance gear for any athlete.”

With everyone’s starting point, path and goal being different – Tim embraced this as an opportunity to broaden VERVE’s appeal and speak to a myriad customers in a way that invites them to share their journey with the brand.

Tim’s design approach pays ohmage to the greats from across the sporting industry who introduce a dynamic element to their marks.

“A V in itself is a little bit generic, static, and symmetrical so I immediately I thought about how I could make it more dynamic, give it direction and give it motion… there was a bit of a lightning bolt moment.”

“It all happened very quickly and as soon as I rotated the V 90 degrees I had a greater than symbol. It's an arrow. It has movement. It has motion. So to be greater is motivation, a call to arms – something that can inspire anyone, no matter what stage of their fitness journey, they're on to be greater than…”

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of communication, a shared way to impart knowledge, inspiration and insight in a communal way – much like fitness, but fitness equipment is often seen as little more than a tool, but Tim has imagined a world where no opportunity is left untapped.

“We're thinking about it as incomplete phrases, so BE> is always paired with something. Be greater than your last rep. Be greater than your obstacles. When we're placing it on product, I try to use the same strategy. Is there something on that product that when the BE> symbol? Is by pointing to something telling you to be greater than something?

So, for example - bumper plates. The BE> points to weight indication, meaning you need to be greater than 25KG. A Zen Power Rack presented a unique challenge because having BE> laser cut into uprights wasn’t entirely practical, so we modified it to simply feature a > symbol.

Tim’s work is far from done – with hundreds of new products in production or the development pipeline at VERVE, the wider team and growing community will start to see more story about what we, as a collective, are achieving and how we are being greater than…