Volcom's story - two friends with a big idea
Volcom is easily one of the most recognisable and respected clothing brands in skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing. As mentioned earlier, Volcom was created by Richard ‘Wooly’ Woolcott and Tucker ‘T-Dawg’ Hall whilst they were out on one of their frequent snowboarding trips.
Their ultimate goal was to create a brand that encapsulated the vibe of their three favourite board sports, with the slogan “Youth Against Establishment” at the core of their values. With both of them having experience within the industries they were trying to thrust Volcom into, they were confident that they could make Volcom huge, and although they did manage to achieve that goal, it was no easy feat reaching it.
Once the two had managed to wrangle a $5,000 loan from Richard's Dad, the project was well and truly on. However, the first two years were certainly not fruitful, with them making a loss in both years. Things gradually began to turn around, with their stickers being seen around most of Southern California, creating some recognition within the area and eventually convincing shops to start opening accounts with them.
With very little budget for marketing, Volcom relied heavily on their logo being as strong as it possibly could which luckily for them, it was! The logo, now known as the Volcom Stone was created by ex-pro-surfer Thom McElroy, who took inspiration from a geology book he was flipping through and noticed if he was to dissect a diamond and flip it, it would create an image that he described as looking like “it could cut you”, thus giving Volcom the perfect logo to represent their ethos. 30 years later, the Volcom Stone is still one of the strongest logos in board sports, even being seen tattooed on people across the globe.
Getting into music
Alongside Volcom curating some of the strongest riders in skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding, Volcom decided to spread their reach even further by creating Volcom Entertainment, Volcom's very own music label. Making them the first clothing company to ever do so. With bands such as CKY, Pepper and Year Long Disaster signing to the label, it was clear that Volcom had their ear to the ground, championing bands that perfectly aligned with the counter-culture mindset that swept throughout skating, surfing and snowboarding. Not only that, but Volcom Entertainment also created their very own battle of the bands, named 'Band Joust', designed to be a competition to get talented unsigned and unknown bands onto the label. Similarly, going back to skateboarding, Volcom also put on a competition series called 'Wild in the Parks', designed to give back to local communities by putting on sick local competitions for aspiring pro-skaters around the world.
Videos and media
As any skater, surfer or snowboarder knows, a major part of being a clothing brand within board sports is filming and releasing videos of their respective teams ripping. Well, luckily for us all, not only have Volcom had some of the best teams on the planet, but they've also made sure to collect a huge selection of insane clips throughout the years and turn them into absurdly good videos.
The list of videos throughout the years is far too long to mention, but with riders such as Grant Taylor, Geoff Rowley, Coco Ho, Jack Robinson, Arthur Longo and Marcus Kleveland being a small collection that have been in various Volcom videos over the years, you can already tell the quality of the footage is going to be high. Big budgets, big names and big tricks throughout.
Another factor that has separated Volcom from many other clothing companies is the sheer quality of their products. Ever since its inception, the quality of the clothing it produces has been as premium as it can be, whether it is an item of clothing from its basic range or one of its most expensive snowboarding jackets, the main objective is to design and construct the clothing as well as possible. Not only that, Volcom make a huge effort to use recycled materials or environmentally friendly methods of fabrication, making sure they do their very best to keep the world in which we surf, skate or snowboard as well looked after as it can be. Volcom is a brand that seems to genuinely care and for that reason alone, we are huge fans of them here at Supereight!
