Less is more

September 30, 2017  I  VERTEX LONDON

BE MORE WITH LESS

Less is more is our design philosophy, you can see that idea through our Phantom Bib Shorts, Phantom Lightweight Vest, and Lightweight Jersey. At Vertex, we always try to take those unnecessary seams and panels out to make the structure of our products simpler as possible. How to make the best use of a fewer piece of materials and yet deliver the specific functions we need is always the topic on the top of our list.  It is not only an artistic issue, but an issue involved highly engineering knowledge.

Simple can be more complicated than complex. As every each of the details can serve a particular purpose, we must find a solution to combine the rest of the details if we want to take some details out. That is often the start of our procedure from complex to simple. Let’s take bib shorts as an example, more panels allow a better, more contoured fit, but every panel need more seams, more seams create more friction points and more material. As panels and fit are two key factors on bib shorts correlating and also contradicting each other in many cases, if we want fewer panels, we must find a way to keep the fit. Solving a contradicting situation like that takes time and resolve, as there are frequently involved solving many issues at the same time.

At Vertex, we express ourselves through lines and shapes. We believe simplification is not only a process of style but a perspective and choice towards many aspects of life. We adopt this same attitude to our logo. For many businesses, logo means branding. However, more branding does not always equal a stronger brand. As more and more brands are spending time on branding rather than the product itself, we want to refocus on the strength of the outputs. We tend to use less logo on our products; we believe that the character of a product stands out only when there is nothing else to distract. With the effort of our high-level R&D team, we can explore the possibility of new material, methods and solutions to the new ideas, it also allows us to come up a series of unique products which never exist in the market before. We hope when people purchase from Vertex; they are buying the product itself, not for the name of a designer or branded logo.