This was a local competition brief 'Keep Colchester Cycling, set by the local creative co-op 15 Queen Street. The brief was to design a 20" mini wheeler, that reflected Colchester. I decided to research into the Parachute Regiment. Like most projects I do, it begins with a few mood boards and brainstorms to get the ball rolling.

I decided to go down the toy soldier route and experiment with the pen tool in photoshop. I noticed that producing 3 different styled soldier it created a pattern. I decided to see what it looked like on the bike frame in the template 15 Queen Street provided. It all seemed to work however it didn't reflect the army, it just seemed to be a pattern.

I then thought, I could create a camouflage effect using the 3 soldiers by repeating the layers. This seemed to work really well. By creating a layer of soldiers then changing the colours which then I could just copy and change the colour which produced the camouflage.

Once the camo was finished, I decided to go back to the template provided and see what it looked like. I decided to add stencil lettering to reflect the location of the bike and 'Keep Colchester Cycling". The shapes and typeface was inspired by markings of the military vehicles. As most mini-wheelers have baskets on the back, I thought I would play with the idea of an Ammo box and also add a Union Jack.

Most bikes have a crest, I thought I would play on the design of the parachute regiment emblem and design one with 20" mini-wheeler. Adding the Colchester Mini-wheeler devision to round the whole bike off. 

I went through many stage of applications of the pattern - spray paint, cutting each one out separately and vinyl. The home ink jet printing vinyl paper worked the best. I found that applying the vinyl was difficult that first thought, cutting in the paper around the curves and bends of the frame was difficult. 

I had to overlap some of the vinyl as it was too difficult to cut to size. It didn't seem to effect the overall design by laying up in some areas. 

The overall finished frame, mud guards and chain guards. I am really happy with the finished design. It now awaits the lacquer and putting back together. The bike got a really good response at our end of year exhibition, I can't wait to have a ride on it and possibly get some soldiers to have a look at it and see what they think. 

 

Here is the Keep Colchester Cycling blog -  http://keepcolchestercycling.co.uk/