A frame graphic that went to a factory in China, a stand that fabricators built from my specification, two catalogs, the trade press and a card game: everything a bike distributor takes to market.
Madison Cycles, London · Graphic Designer, in-house, across Madison’s own marketing and for Genesis, a sister brand Madison distributed
Product graphics · Manufacturing specification · Large-format and events · Catalog design · Trade advertising · Promotional packaging
THE CHALLENGE
Genesis was launching the Alpitude, one of its top of the line bikes. The frame was clean white and the new Shimano crankset was the part worth pointing at.
A decal on a production bike is not a poster. It wraps compound curves, it has to survive manufacture, and it gets made by a factory in another country working from a document.
WHAT I DID
Took the idea from the component rather than the frame.
The crankset was the story, so the graphic grows out of it. The reference was Venom, a symbiote taking its host, the new component appearing to infect the clean white frame. A reason to look that way, rather than a pattern laid on top.
Specified it for manufacture and saw it through production.
I built the spec sheet, sent it to the factory in China, and kept the communication running with them through to production. On a physical product the artwork is half the job. The other half is the working relationship with the people building it, across a distance and a time difference.
THE WIDER JOB
Madison distributed a lot of brands, and one designer covered the lot: the stand at the show, the catalog on the counter, the trade press, and the thing that ends up in a dealer’s hand.
Designed the trade show stand and specified it for the fabricators who built it.
Thor was one of the brands Madison carried. I designed the stand, the banner and the rider graphics, then wrote the artwork specification the fabricators built from. Same job as the decal at a different scale: a file that looks right on screen and wrong at four metres has cost real money by the time anyone notices.
Designed both product catalogs, sole designer on each.
Two full books, cycling and motocross. A distributor’s catalog is a working document before it is a piece of design: hundreds of products, sizes, colourways and prices, all findable at a glance and correct to the penny.
Made the trade advertising.
Ads for Aztec, Cycra and Shimano, all brands Madison distributed. Three products, three different arguments: Aztec on the feeling of riding with brakes you trust, Cycra on features and price, Shimano on one shoe and a joke.
Turned a bike range into a card game.
Dealers and riders compare bikes on numbers anyway, so the Commençal range became a set of trump cards. I designed the cards and the box, and they went out at shows and to dealers.
RESULTS
Applied graphics for the Genesis Alpitude, from concept through to production artwork
A production spec sheet, issued to an overseas manufacturer and carried with them through to production
A trade show stand, designed and specified for the fabricators who built it
Two product catalogs, sole designer on both, in two different categories
Trade advertising for Aztec, Cycra and Shimano
A promotional card set and its packaging, produced for trade shows and dealers
Illustrating something is one skill. Getting it built correctly by someone else, a factory eight thousand kilometres away or a fabricator putting up a stand overnight, is a different one, and most of it is documentation and staying in the conversation. This is where I learned the second.
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