The history of Jet Set Radio started in 2000. The action game was created by Smilebit, which is a Sega studio, and published by Sega for the Dreamcast.
Meaning and history
Jet Set Radio is a Dreamcast arcade game released in 2000, in which the player controls a 17-year-old Japanese teenager who rollerblades around the city and draws graffiti while avoiding encounters with enemy gangs. Jet Set Radio scored 94 points on Metacritic’s 2024 Top 20 21st Century list, in which the publication compiled the highest-rated original games of the past 25 years, ranking it 10th.
Despite the fact that Jet Set Radio was released a quarter of a century ago, the appearance of the game still amazes with its design. Everything here is very bright and fashionable even with modern concepts. And no wonder, because the game is dedicated to graffiti.
The plot is that the main character of Jet Set Radio, a teenager named Beat, runs away from home, gathers a gang of rollers, called GG, and starts a competition with similar gangs.
The main occupation of Japanese teenagers is to look for spray paint cans, paint as much graffiti as possible and somehow survive in skirmishes with cops. You have to paint where the red arrows are pointing. By the way, the graffiti artist for the game is Inkie, an artist from London, «who combines graffiti and figurative imagery. His style reminds of art nouveau influences with an urban twist».
2000 – now
The Jet Set Radio logo has been very consistent throughout its history. The “blast” style and the yellow-and-green palette have made it recognizable in various parts of the globe. The most important message of the logo is its street art style. It is supposed to appeal to the target audience and, of course, echoes the contents of the game, where the player controls one of the members of a youth gang, who are busy spraying graffiti, among other things.
The centerpiece of the design is the name of the brand set in a creative custom typeface. It looks as if there has been an explosion that has distorted the shapes. All sorts of shapes can be seen around the glyphs, some of them sharp and arrow-like, others rounded and flower-like.
The two hexagon-like shapes (on the “R” and the one replacing the “O” glyph) are inspired by the inline skates extensively used by the members of the gang.
Font
The glyphs are highly distorted, as if as a result of a blast. Some of them are twice or even three times larger than the others. The lines that should be strictly horizontal or strictly vertical are positioned at various unpredictable angles.
Colors
Yellow, which dominates the Jet Set Radio logo, is known as the color associated with young people and optimism. Consequently, its use here appears pretty natural. The green becomes a great companion. Here, two shades of green are used (a lighter and a darker one) to add dimension.