Thursday, July 5, 2007

Bike Logos


So these are the logos for each bike.
Each actually has a bit of a story behind it and directly relates to the bike.

For example the Scirocco logo signifies the wings of the thunderbird. A Scirocco is a wind that gains power as it crosses from the Saharra over the Meditaranean Sea and frequently turns into a storm in southern Europe.
The Thunderbird is a mythological bird that inhabited the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. The Squamish and Salish Indian nations had lands that included the Whistler and North Shore mountains where they believed the thunderbird lived... specifically Black Tusk in Squamish. It was said that the thunderbird would flap its wings creating thunder to warn them that they were coming to close to the thunderbird. The bird was enormous in size and could also shoot lightning from beneath its wings.
The thunderbird's wing is a good icon for the Scirocco which is a powerful wind, sometimes turning into a storm storm, that ties in nicely with Banshee Bikes being born from the shore. It also honors the first nations and their lands that we have so much fun riding on.

Really quickly tho:
The Rampant is the Scottish Lion Rampant
The Legend will be a spartan but we're still deciding on the specific graphic
The Pyre is the rear view of a missle turbojet
The Rune is the vegvisir - a nordic compass charm
The Scirocco is the wing of a thunderbird
The Viento is the V surrounded by a laurel wreath
The Scratch is a stylized skull
The Wildcard is a Banshee playing card
The Scythe is 2 scythes in an X shape.
The Morphine is a mean set of brass knuckles

Each bike will be adorned with its specific logos, and when I get the 08 website up it will provide more details on each name, and how the icon represents the bike.

I felt this year it was important to really work at representing the bikes character. A big DH bike is a different machine then a quick, light and fast XC/AM bike like the Viento and I really thought it would be a disservice to the bike to just be lazy and throw on a set of decals that were the same for every single bike in the line up. We spent a great deal of time working on the actual designs and performance characteristics so it was only right to finish them off and give them a little bit more "life".

Huge props go to Ran Berko and his creative team [you know who you are] for turning my concepts and incoherent ramblings into exactly what I was looking for. You must have some crazy, climb in my mind, and figure out what the hell he wants, voodoo.