Bandwagon Graphiks

I recently had a conversation with another design buddy Art Meier – in response to a training tweet I posted about having fallen off the training wagon and drowning in boredom. It happens to the best of us, we all go through our funks where despite a proverbial mountain of work – you just want to sit there and stare at the wall. Sort of like back in the day when your PC melted before your eyes, and rebooted only to display the dreaded blinking cursor.

Anyways, Art sort of pushed me to take this blog in a somewhat different more personal direction in order to get me to update it more often. Up until now – I’ve treated this blog as place to update the world on the latest projects, commercial work, and tips and tricks for other freelancers. I suppose even for me, the author, its boring. But what to write about?

Well something I’m beyond passionate about is cycling. Thru and thru, I’m so into bikes, I want to have my bikes babies. It’s bad. Well no, its good, but to non-bikers out there…I’ve got a sick and twisted addiction that dinosaur drivers have no concept of. I train like a mad woman, over 400 miles a month if I’m being lazy and 500 in a good month without rolling a century. [A century is riding 100+ miles in one day] – I’m working towards my first triathlon in September/October – but more than that – I love riding. I started two years ago – just commuting to work – and slowly as time passed, became stupidly addicted.

Don’t worry, I won’t blather on about just bikes, but more how bikes and design collide in my life. How I balance training with my design work. Where does the graphic designer & cyclist meet? and how all of this has effected my work. Art could tell you, he witnessed it, maybe I overheard him say “this girl needs help”.

It was during this years Y-Conference in San Diego. On the last night as we were walking to the end of conference party – I spied a beauty. A bike so pretty and well designed that I nearly peed my pants. Here she is…

To some of you, you might just see an old bike with no bells and whistles. To me, I see a great piece of Italian steel from the grand age of bike design, back when carbon fiber was not in the vocabulary of cycling. I see a pristine paint job with perfect script logo. Where simple meets elegant. Bottecchia is brand of bicycles dating back to the 1920′s – and the brand is still alive today.

I’m a sucker for arresting typography like most of you out there, and this is one of my favorite Bottecchia logos. Most experienced cyclists will tell you when you are looking to buy a bike, to not let the graphics of the bike play into your decision too much, you need a bike that fits your body. Well being a graphic designer, thats impossible for me. I find bikes that a designed beautifully then cross my fingers that they work for me.

I recently found this beauty on a bike site I peruse often, she’s 3 centimeters too big for me, but you know what….she just might be my fourth child soon. Im in love with the eastern european color scheme…probably b/c she reminds me of it so much.

What I find really intriguing about bike design over the last 50 years or so, is how along with the design of the bike – the logos change – nearly every year. With design these days, its all about the brand. Everything has to match and communicate over the years, the logotype is the sole image tying your products together – brand recognition is huge. So why do so many bikes from years past and even now – have multiple logo types on their products?

I’m a huge fan of thick scripty fonts, so upon seeing this beauty – I melted. But previous years Bottecchia logos were more sans serif almost constructivist feeling, while current models have this bad-ass fast and furious treatment.

Taking a look as some of the recent ads for TS Performance, you’ll notice I’ve been working the scripty fonts in with the grungy fonts – a little Creampuff with a little Dirty Headline. Sure, the demographic for these ads is mostly males, who don’t necessarily respond to “girly” fonts, but I’ve always felt that a mix of styles is a nice way to keep the ad interesting. Sort of like when you bite into some Tempura Shrimp Ahi Tuna sushi and get that mix of temperatures. I like combining different senses within my design, and recreating that funny feeling, in hopes that the ad stays with you longer. It’s a little preference I picked up while working on so many automotive ads, they are so often quite type heavy and busy, so as a designer I have to keep it interesting, keep it fresh, and not create a wall of type.

No matter how awesome your really cool grunge font is, if its the only font you use – you might as well just load it up with Helvetica. Make something that plays with the eyes and keeps the viewer moving around the page. Remember the Golden Curve from Design 101? May have been a boring lesson back in the day, but I actually think about it still with every new project…you would be surprised.

In the end, we’ve established that I am a bike hugging nutcase, that was easy – and bike design will continue to amaze me – I have many more images of rad bikes that I’ve come across in my daily travels. Tomorrow, I’ll do a post on the Da Vinci Bike.