Ice racing has always been a fascination of mine, and going to a race has been on my bucket list for a few years now. Friday I finally got to cross it off the list as I attended Round 1 of the 41st World Championship ICE Racing event in Reading, PA. Lucky for me, I got to play a bigger role than just a spectator that night.
About a month ago I got in contact with the McGrane family to help with the design of the trophy plates. Fallen flat tracker Kyle McGrane called this race track home, and his brother Tommy wanted to make these plates extra special for this round. I was more than happy to help, and I got into Illustrator to put Tommy's vision to life. The whole process went really smooth, and the final printed product turned out really rad. Below are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place plates for the bikes main event.
All three plates are very similar in their design, but the placement of the transparent picture of Kyle in the background is unique on each. I designed the 1st place plate first and made sure the 99A was large and centered. When I began to work with the 2nd and 3rd plates, the shape of those numbers were significantly different, so the placement of the 99A had to shift. I made the image a bit smaller so that when I placed it, you could see the 99A number plate clearly on each plate, while it still being fairly centered. In my opinion, this also made the 1st place plate stand out a bit more. I also did a second version of the plates for the quad class that just swapped out some copy. Tommy was really happy with the designs and printed them.
On race day I ran an Aid to Injured Riders booth at the arena and had a great set up right inside the doors. AIR had stickers for Kyle, Charlotte, Morgan and Dominic for sale, Kyle bracelets and our flat track trading card sets.
I ended up having some really good conversations with the fans. Some knew flat trackers, others didn't. Even those who didn't know much about flat track, still donated money, and it was yet another humbling experience. Below is an action shot of the AIR set up with Throttle Down Speed Co.'s Em front and center!
At the end of the night I got my very own copies of the number 1 plates that Logan McGrane got signed for me! I've already found a sweet spot for them in my apartment to show them off. Congratulations to Jake Mataya for making a last lap pass for the lead to put the #99A bike on top of the box.
Part of my on-going duties is to maintain and update house brand websites. The Raxiom brand continues to expand as more products are created for various vehicles including Mustang, F-150 and Wrangler. As new products are added, I like to continue to add them to the Featured Products section of Raxiom.com. This month I added ten new products to the top of the featured section and worked with the web development team to execute the additions.
Updates for this section are pretty simple, as I pull the assets, arrange them in the grid and slice them up. I also provide the sort category (vehicle type), product name and the type of Raxiom product (ie: Performance Lighting) that appears on hover. The sort function is what I think is the highlight of this grid of products, as you can see different parts for different vehicles and the boxes rearrange accordingly. This site is responsive and so is that functionality. Check it out here: Raxiom.com/featured.
The racing off season is a drag, let's face it. In an attempt to keep it interesting the TDSC co-founders (Brian & myself) filled out interviews for everyone to get to know us a little better. Check out Brian's here, and stay tuned for mine tomorrow!
Last season Throttle Down Speed Co. rider Dan Bromley qualified and raced in several GNC1 national flat track races. In 2017 he is rewarded with a new national number for this year and he chose the historic #62. It will be really cool to see him rocking the new digits and to go along with that will be a new logo for his shirts. Above are two versions and the logo needed to be slightly tweaked to accommodate for our vinyl cutting process. TDSC looks forward to 2017, and supporting the Throttle Down Team. Not too much longer until Daytona...
My CB360 rear fender was next on the restoration list. The exterior wasn't too rusty, however, underneath was pretty ugly looking. Per usual I resorted to steel wool, Mothers Polish and some quality elbow grease to remove the rust. The end goal was to paint it black to match the springs I recently done (see previous progress post.)
The exterior cleaned up beautifully and quickly, where the underside took a lot more elbow grease. I had then painted it black with some "rattle can", as my Caro friends like to refer to it as, and it was looking really good. I removed the tape I used to protect the rubber and screw holes and quickly nicked part of the paint off. I figured I'd touch it up and use some clear coat. I had 1shot enamel laying around and figured that wouldn't hurt to use as touch up paint. Tonight I got some clear coat to top it all off.
To my surprise a reaction occurred either between the clear and the enamel or purely the cold temperatures. It's days like these I wish I paid more attention in science class.
The bubbles spread in various areas and removed all of the paint when wiped with a towel. Looks like I will be stripping it down, digging out my steel wool again to smooth it out. Then I'll repaint it and clear it in appropriate temperatures, sans enamel. Looks like I'll keep on learning! Stay tuned...
Every now and then a designer will do a project that they're happy with, but for various reasons it may be replaced with something else. That's the case with this AmericanMuscle January Sale creative I made last month. I went in with a concept of a rolling car in an cold winter scene. Below is the inspirational image I found in a Google search.
With the concept approved, I searched through various stock backgrounds to get a similar feel. When I found the image below I flipped the orientation, removed some distracting elements, adjusted the color and warmth of the photo and then added motion blur.
The above wasn't the final back plate I used, but it was enough to get started on the renders. I first rendered the 2015 Mustang and made it a dark gray to keep the overall icy feel that was in the inspirational image. I did some compositing with the render to get everything to fit in the scene. From there I added the 2015 image into the various on site and email templates. What I found was most of the winter background ended up getting cropped out due to the orientation of the templates. Below is an on site web banner.
I do feel the image is more impactful with more mountains and sky showing, however, the wintry feel was still very much there in the crop. I proceeded with the other car generations and composites to complete the full package. For graphics that needed copy, I kept it simple. Below are some generational web banners with the simplistic copy.
I was happy with the final graphics for this project. Unfortunately it needed to be replaced with alternative creative, but sometimes that's how it goes in the design world. On to the next!
