Hazard Cup / Black Vinyl, Broken Borders

A small decoration project moved from reference signs to design choices, then from images to actual cut paths. The useful part was keeping the same visual rule across every symbol while allowing the cup color to show through.

Start with familiar shapes. The first references were a lightning bolt inside a yellow warning triangle and a gas pump inside a yellow road-sign diamond. The request was for something creative in black vinyl, so the silhouettes had to do the work that color had been doing.

Choose one visual rule. Three directions were explored: Industrial, Retro Garage, and Refuel. The Industrial pair won. Its bolt interrupted the triangle, and its pump hose reached through the diamond. Those intentional breaks made the signs feel like a coordinated design rather than stock labels.

Make the family larger. The corrosive hand and the dead-tree-and-fish symbol followed the same rule. Broad black shapes, open spaces, and selected breaks in the frame kept the more detailed subjects readable beside the original pair.

Turn the artwork into something a cutter can follow. The selected images became closed vector paths with real holes. The four-design file keeps each sticker as a separate black layer; individual SVGs make it easy to use one design at a time. Black is the vinyl and every opening reveals the cup. The files can be resized without depending on a font or tracing a screenshot again.

Keep the extra ideas. A later snake-and-staff design was taken from a shared cup mockup, with small gaps and the tongue adjusted for cutting. A simple rectangular CAUTION label added outlined lettering and a warning triangle. Both are included as additional files rather than being presented as decals visible in the finished photographs.

Record the object. The photographs show the gas pump around one side, the tree-and-fish below it, and the corrosive symbol above the lightning bolt on another face. Black against pale green gives the set its contrast. The design experiment made it onto the cup; how the edges hold up over time is still an open question.