“The OG Optimus Prime is a timeless icon!”: Greg Storey – Senior Creative Director at RSVLTS – talks TRANSFORMERS

Greg, it’s always great to catch up. RSVLTS has launched a TRANSFORMERS collection marking 40 years of the brand. What made TRANSFORMERS an exciting brand to design for?
Regardless of the generation, the TRANSFORMERS franchise has been a part of pop culture in some capacity, however at RSVLTS most of us were fans of the toys and cartoons at an early age. It was the first time a car wasn’t JUST a car… It was MORE than meets the eye. It was an influential part of our childhood, and I feel the brand resonates with everyone really.

There’s plenty of strings you could pull on when designing this range. Can you talk us through some key early design decisions and how they helped steer the collection to where it ended up?
When tackling the TRANSFORMERS franchise, there were so many incredible iterations of the characters to choose from across all the eras, however we all quickly gravitated to the GEN 1 versions. The OG Optimus Prime is peak Eighties toy design and is a timeless icon. After that starting point, the ideas simply ‘rolled out’ from there!

Nice. More puns please. Now, let’s dive into a few items from the line. The synth look for your ‘Energon84’ shirt is brilliant. Can you talk us through why that aesthetic made sense for the brand?
The synth design aesthetic has this great retro-future design style. It is a perfect match for the TRANSFORMERS franchise, which has that classic nostalgia play, yet always felt so ahead of its time.

Your striking “Roll Out” shirt takes inspiration from the Last Stand of the Wreckers comic book series. Why did this piece of TRANSFORMERS franchise history jump out as being something to embrace for a design?
The cover image with the silhouetted Wreckers is just such a strong composition. They look so incredibly heroic. I love the fact that you can’t see all the detail, which makes it a shirt that’s both wearable and also shows your fandom a bit more subtly. If someone knows it’s TRANSFORMERS right away, that’s super cool and will register a nod… But if someone doesn’t notice it right away, then it becomes a great conversation starter.

Absolutely. The “Generation 1” also has some nice design touches. You’re embraced this style – featuring a kind of chequerboard of graphics – across many different licensed launches. What kind of graphics do you need to make this style sing?
This design was influenced by the toy packaging. They had that tech grid in the background and amazing paintings of the transformers ready for action. When I was young, my dad bought me my first TRANSFORMERS action figure when he brought it back as a gift on a business trip. I had never seen one before and it blew my mind – and I probably still think about that figure at least once a month! The combo of that and the toy packaging had me hooked. I needed them all!

The TRANSFORMERS franchise celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Why do you feel it continues to thrive? And especially in apparel?
Things converting into robots was cool back then, it is still hyper cool now and will definitely be cool for generations to come! Optimus, Megatron, Soundwave… They all live rent free in our imaginations. Heck, I am still waiting for the day that CAR THAT CONVERTS TO A ROBOT is an option at the local dealership… Sign me up!

Ha! Thanks again Greg. And congrats on another terrific collection.