BIKE KINGDOM LENZERHEIDE - BIKE CLANS
In 2019, I was commissioned by Creative Intelligence Agency to create a series of three characters for their client
Bike Kingdom Lenzerheide's biking app. The goal was to create a character to represent three riding styles, which users could choose upon setting up the app, which they could then use to see progress, earn rewards and add a competitive element as they biked in the beautiful mountains of Lenzerheide, Switzerland.
THE PROCESS
INITIAL SKETCHES
At first, we started with some rough possible character sketches for the different clans to capture their vibe.
⚡️ Shred Posse ⚡️
This clan is based on speed and adrenaline. Going downhill and not slowing down is what they live for.
Initially we decided on the bird riding a rocket.
☠️ Gnarly Squad ☠️
Later renamed Drop Squad, this crew is not afraid of taking risks and riding rough, and possibly breaking some bones for the love of the rush. Here we decided to go with the crazy-eyed pig, playing on the German words "Rampenschwein" and "Pistensau" (a crazy and reckless skier/person).
💧 Flow Tribe 💧
The Flow Tribe is super chill and just enjoys soaking in the scenery while taking a completely relaxed ride through nature.
Here we chose to go with a swan on water, taking it easy.
Here, we continued working on the characters some more...
And some more, but we decided this was looking too much like clip art (!), so for the next round I really focused on getting more detail in. It was at this point we also decided to swap the Shred bird for either a Trout or a Lynx on a bike - there were too many birds now, and too few bike references.
This was looking much better! So it was time to finish the line work, change some details and add some colour.
Here are some initial colours we went with.
Next I started on the type
It's pretty common in my work process that I get asked to tone down the colours a bit (to appeal to a larger group of people), so it came as no surprise that I would do the same this time. The lynx and swan also got some helmets, for safety!
And some more... At this point the "Gnarly" crew was also changed to "Drop" and the tribe, squad and posse got taken out.
Now that the main characters were finalised, it was time to make some smaller logos for the app's profiles, so we went back to some sketching at this time.
We picked the pig's hand, the swan's head, but still made three options for the lynx's icon - the skull was the clear winner!
THE FINALS
After a couple more slight colour and detail tweaks, we ended up with our final designs,
which are now part of the Bike Kingdom App.
Thanks for coming along on my process journey, and special thanks to art director Niels Schäfer for all the guidance and designer Veronika Forsythe for helping make the right colour choices!
