R.A.D®

Founded by former British CrossFit athlete Benjamin Massey, R.A.D is a performance footwear brand that caters to the comprehensive requirements of CrossFit and functional training athletes of every ability, while maintaining a firm focus on style, comfort and contemporary cultural forms. In 2019, Massey enlisted us to create a comprehensive brand identity and expression for R.A.D. Over the next three years, we developed Massey’s vision into a total fully-fledged sportswear brand built to compete with the heavyweights and household names.

Distinguishing R.A.D from the familiar, hyper-glossy, hyper-competitive aesthetic that has largely defined CrossFit and fitness culture in recent years was a central aim from the very outset. In response, we proposed a unique, immersed approach that would truly situate R.A.D as a footwear brand for more than fitness fanatics alone. Drawing from Ben and the teams immersion in the cultural movements that defined our youth, our approach situated R.A.D among the extreme sport subcultures that first bridged the divides between fashion, fitness and creative expression at the turn of the 1990s. By incorporating visual artifacts from that era into the R.A.D identity—such as VHS cassette tapes, glossy print magazine spreads, fluorescent colour schemes and vibrant mash-ups of analog and digital aesthetics—we wanted to situate R.A.D within a world much broader than training and gym culture, while locating those worlds within R.A.D’s own DNA.

Rather than producing content to fit the audiences for whom we’re creating, we wanted to draw from the authentic perspectives of our own team and the teams we work with. By blending these reference points, references and cultural touchpoints with artifacts from our collective cultural memory, and situating them within a sharp, forward-thinking design discipline, we created an aesthetic that is both familiar and distinctive; nostalgic and progressive; embedded and impactful.

Overall, the success of R.A.D and the R.A.D ONE is the culmination of over three years of dedicated collaboration between agency and client, in which we were both invited and encouraged to use our proven expertise and cultural acumen to empower an independent company to reject the well-worn paths and create an expression unique to itself, producing an indie footwear brand that now proudly stands toe-to-toe with the biggest names in the industry—on its own terms.