Building a brand from the helmet down.

As part of the awesome experience of re-branding Ben Spies (and branding myself) I had the opportunity to do so pretty awesome stuff. Designing the bike was one component, but the most surreal moment came when I had to design his new helmet.

In the world of MotoGP, a rider’s helmet is his calling card. For some, like Valentino Rossi, the brand is a brand of change. For Ben, his equity in the star was something that he, nor RD2, wanted to lose. Because of the international nature of  the sport and it’s vendors, all of the artwork is sent around the globe to various factories to be translated and produced, sight unseen. Even knowing this, we were a bit surprised by the process. After designing the graphics for the helmet, we sent them to HJC for approval and production. Because of the deadlines to produce the helmet for the season, they called us almost immediately to let us know that the designs were great and that they would be sending us a helmet to paint the designs onto.

You don’t have to look very hard to find a company that will produce custom vinyl graphics that sublimate onto any substance known to man. Custom iphone cases, Instagram coasters and magnets, one-off skate board decks…3-D printing has reached new heights and yet HJC was telling us we needed to physically paint the design onto the helmet. Four days later, we received two helmets from Korea. Somebody get me a paint brush.

I was skeptical about how it would come out once it was, painted, packaged, shipped around the world, and then translated to a mass produced item without the aid of digital art, but again I was surprised. Despite our emails to see a working sample, it wasn’t until the first race that we got to see the results. It looked bad ass. While other aspects of the brand were left up to the discretion of the sponsors or were limited by workable space, the new helmet felt like a huge success.

The making of story featured below was fast and furious but fun nonetheless. I managed to grab a couple of work in progress shots as I went.

Materials used: a combination of paint, vinyl adhesives, and elbow grease.