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.

Muc-Off Web Banner and Shop Artwork

Muc-Off certainly have one of the most distinct brand images in the motorcycle trade and it's pretty much down to one thing: pink. I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that pink isn't exactly embraced by the  motorcycling world. Without being too judgmental or sweeping, biking is predominantly a masculine recreation, and human convention dictates that pink is a visual indicator for the exact opposite of this. The only time you'll really see pink used is on ladies branding/clothing and even this is often met with a fair amount  of resistance from female riders as they understandably don't like to be stereotyped in this way.

Most parts departments (including our own) in bike dealerships are a real Aladdin's cave of hundreds of different products. It is only the strongest and boldest brands that are able to stand out from the competition. Muc-Off have proven that this reluctance to use pink has been a real oversight.

As Muc-Off are cleaning and protection products, it makes sense that bubbles have been used as the main design point on artwork for the brand. This, coupled with the pink colours mentioned above is all that really went into making the banner you see here. I then replicated this for use as a footer on other marketing material for Muc-Off in store.

 

Birthday Bash!

Last Saturday (3rd November) was the 1st anniversary of the opening of Maidstone Harley-Davidson in Kent, UK Website. To celebrate the occasion, the dealership decided to hold a "Birthday Bash" at the store. There were some specially customised bikes in the showroom , a live band, a hog roast in the car park, as well as some mini fair-type games to keep everyone entertained throughout the day.

To advertise the event, it was decided that a unique logo would have the biggest impact and provide somewhat of an identity for the anniversary. The campaign included a mixture of web and print advertising, including an editorial and advert in Motorcycle News.

  

The design worked an absolute treat as around 100,000 people (approximately) braved the cold, wind and rain just to see my posters up close ...and probably to look at some motorbikes and that as well.


Primary Font: Clarendon
Secondary Font: Helvetica


To begin with, the logo was much more plain than the one you see above. Basically everything you see in orange wasn't added until later. As it was so close to bonfire night, one of my colleagues recommended incorporating fireworks into the design as it would all tie together with the theme of celebration, as well as the time of year. It was certainly a good addition and gave the logo a bit more punch and colour.

Creating this logo was admittedly a bit of a learning curve as it was the first design I had created completely in Illustrator. I have been daunted by the prospect of having to learn how to use Illustrator for some time so this gave me the impetus to crack on with it. It was frustrating at times as things just don't work the same as they do in Photoshop but I think the result was promising given my limited knowledge of the program. I'm sure with a bit of time and patience I'll get my head around all the little techniques and tricks.  

Unfortunately, my idea for a tagline to go with the logo was rejected. For some reason, nobody was a fan of "Let's Bash It Up Big Style!"