Triumph Purchase Options

A simple enough promotion: 3 great offers on the table and the customer picks their preferred option.

We planned to promote the offer on as many different platforms as possible...

• Website banner & news story
• Facebook cover photo
• Email 
• In-store posters
• Bike labels
• MCN (Motorcycle News) advert

...so the look had to be easily recognizable to reinforce the message. I needed something that I could repeat on all these platforms and was adaptable to fit the different shapes and sizes of each. This is where the Union Jack came into play.

The Union Jack:

As Britain's leading motorcycle brand, Triumph often use the Union Jack and other icons of British culture to promote the brand in a patriotic way.

Flags are something you see a lot of in the marketing of companies and their products. Just the other day my brother was telling me that the most popular custom paint scheme on a Harley-Davidson is the Captain America / Stars & Stripes theme. It is one of the best ways to fuel a brand or product identity by tapping into people's preconceived notions about a particular culture. Italian brands probably utilize this more than any other by reinforcing the idea that Italian products are naturally classy and of a high quality. Look no further than the the AGV logo, or Ducati's Panigale Tricolore, for examples of this in motorcycling.

So, Triumph=Britain. However, it sadly isn't as simple as just plonking the first result of a google image search onto a poster to convey this. Otherwise you'll look no better than a slightly questionable ebay seller that feels the need to tell you how fast his UK delivery service is on every product picture.

For the design of my Union Jack, it was important for me not to be restricted by where I could place it on posters/adverts/banners etc. Therefore, I would need to adapt it so it didn't have such rigid outer borders (a.k.a. so it wasn't a rectangle). To achieve this, I looked to create a paint splat / stamp / destroyed / torn version of the flag so that it would merge nicely with any other images. One of the main sources of inspiration for this was the Silverstone logo.

Web Banner:

MCN Advert:

In-Store:

A whole A1 poster for each choice, now that's a little extravagant!

Maidstone Harley-Davidson 1000 Likes

One of the shops I work for, Maidstone Harley Davidson, recently hit a milestone on their Facebook page. The page has now exceeded 1000 likes and they wanted a little design to herald such a momentous occasion.

At first I only had one circular ring and the text, and as you can imagine it looked a little boring and empty. The Facebook thumbs up came next as it clearly ties in with the reason behind the design; I took a vector image I had of the "like" icon and constructed a silhouette out of it before overlaying the grunge effect. The Harley-Davidson bar and shield logo outline you see at the bottom was done in much the same way, as were the three stars.

Without blowing my own trumpet, I like how it turned out. The black & white destroyed/concrete effect is uncomplicated but interesting and bold enough to catch your eye.


Font: Clarendon (Harley-Davidson corporate font)

A lot of pages, even those for larger companies, don't tend to take much care when uploading photos to their walls. Facebook pages have a set size for cropping photos and when one is uploaded that doesn't match these dimensions, it ends up looking messy. Paying just a little bit of attention can really make the difference. This is why I produce graphics that fit the space perfectly, it helps to tidy things up and gives the page a much more professional look.

By the way, the dimensions are: 403px x 403px for anyone who's interested.

Kawasaki Web Banners

Two examples of banners on the homepage of the Kawasaki site. All the others have followed the same pattern to maintain some consistency and save me a bit of time when new ones need to be made.

Two static call to action images on the left hand side of the page:

Triumph Rocket Voucher

There isn't really much of a background with this project as the offer was manufacturer-led, so I'll just get straight into the design process.

I had a firm idea from the start of what I hoped this poster would look like. Earlier in the year I had gathered together a nice set of promotional photos of the Rocket so I knew one of these would form the basis of the background.

If you saw more of my work in the showroom you would have noticed a recent trend. I have become fond of the type of layout that has the motorcycle on location at the foot of the page, with a tall skyline that you can comfortably lay your text over without images getting muddled with the text.

Unfortunately, most promotional photos are cropped just above the top of the bike, so I have to do a bit of work on the image to add this in. The first part of this process is to cut out the existing background so you can start with somewhat of a blank canvas (I find this is a better technique than replicating and transforming parts of the existing sky to make it cover a larger area). Most of the time, a simple two-tone gradient will do the job, with white (or a very pale tone) being the preferable colour at the bottom of the page.




Primary Font: American Captain
Secondary Font: Delta Jaeger Light

When it came to the font, I was keen for it to represent the nature of the machine it was advertising. The Rocket has a 2294cc engine, which is the largest displacement engine of any mass-production motorcycle in the world. So no mistake, it's a beast. Therefore, the font had to be big, bold and be able to dominate the page.

As you may have guessed "American Captain" is a replica of the font used for the recent Captain America film. I see this as nothing but a good thing.

Technically, I probably shouldn't have used this font as it doesn't follow the corporate guidelines set out by triumph. To date, there have been no complaints, and I believe the promotion has now finished. (I'll be honest, this slyness/craftiness makes me feel like a prohibition-era gangster. Take that, Eliot Ness!)


Web Banner:

Learn to Ride

The eagle-eyed among you may notice that this is my first post for about 5 months, which is quite frankly, far too big a gap. I'm sorry, university got in the way.

Its back to business now though and I'm going to kick things off with one of the more punchy promotions we've had in the store recently - the 'Learn to Ride' campaign...

The company I work for, Laguna Motorcycles, recently teamed up with a local bike training school called Dexterity Training. To make the process more enjoyable for enthusiastic amateur riders, we organised a fleet of bikes that would not usually be an option for learning on.

The best aspect of this is that it gives learners the opportunity to try out the type of bike, or even the specific model, that they would be looking to purchase after their test.

The three models chosen were the Ducati Monster 696, the Triumph Street Triple, and the Harley-Davidson 883. They are great entry-level bikes that are steady and comfortable, but with enough oomph to grab your attention.

As far as the design was concerned, I have to hold my hands up and admit that I had no idea it would end up looking like this when I started. I didn't have a gameplan and most of the process was done on a trial and error basis. I'm never one to blow my own trumpet, but I think it actually turned out pretty nice in the end.

However, from the start I did know that including L-plates was not gonna be happening. I'm not sure why, but I find that its a cheap look and thought that the safety cones would be just as effective.

At the moment I don't think there's a colour scheme with as much instant visual impact as dark grey and orange (and in this case, an earthy tone to set a subtle background). It is so important to draw attention to the main parts of the poster with a bold colour and even from a fair distance away, a customer will instantly know what this banner is about. Then if they want to know more, the phone number is also highlighted as a call to action.

The three images shown above were eventually printed on large vinyl pull up banners and have a great impact in the store.

DISASTER!

Unfortunately, before I had the chance to write this up, the banners were taken up to Brands Hatch for the British Superbikes and whilst stored in the gazebo, "someone broke in, tried to grab it and ended up tearing it". I haven't decided if I'm going to believe this story yet, seems a tad far-fetched.

Anyway, I'm hoping a bit of TLC and maybe some sticky tape will patch her up nicely.