This is my senior project in graphic design at Montana State University. I'm creating visual maps of bicycle tune-up and repair tasks. Inspired by manuals, maps, charts, and other informative graphics. Bikes too!
Here are some things I just finished (for now) putting together. Just, you know... adding some words. It makes my life a bit easier and makes everything a bit more understandable. It ends up being pretty comical. What do you think?
Found this video on Wooster Collective awhile ago. It kinda gave me the idea to present this project in a comic type format. Well worth the 17 minutes. Check it out.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Here are a few (other) good sites to learn about fixing bikes--
(until I take over the world)
first, Sheldon Brown. The man seems to have been a walking bicyclopedia. All sorts of information about...well, all sorts of things.
Park Tool. They make nice tools, and are a great resource for repair instructions. As is this one. This fella's made a bunch of videos about fixing bikes. Kind of nerdy (me too!), and really good.
The first computer illustration I made was a circular sketch-up of how to wrap bars on a road bike. I like how legible (right?) it is-- the basic instructions made sense to people other than my roomates and I. Which is good.
What I don't like about it? It's WICKED lame. Not even a little bit interesting. Except for that little fella in there.
And then I have some hand drawn images which I like, and thought maybe I would do for everything. And THEN I found this (in my bookmarks folder): Frank Chimero's illustration process. (website here)
AND THEN(!) I found some comic book stuff. How word bubbles are used in comics. (from blambot dot com) A comic about fixing bikes? Nice!
Monday, February 9, 2009
My first blog post. Ever. Three illustrations to start it off. A diagram showing proper brake contact and a 3/4 view of the brake and rim, and a few others of brakes. These are going to be part of a "how to adjust v-brakes" illustrated instruction set. Like a comic book. Maybe.
Don't worry! They're still kinda early stage. I'm gonna do some hand line work in them to look less computery. The colors aren't finalized either.
I'll keep you updated. There is a few other things cookin.