Eldee-2 Isle of Man campaign

For the launch of the paired print and online campaign a noisy and aggressive illustration and layout style that blends the airbrushed comic book techniques of the 50s with present day Moto GP supergraphics was chosen. This approach amplifies the dynamism of the historic project resources and was very effective at driving visitors to the new VRNZ website and blog. The ad appeared in a 7 page ‘Classic Bike’ feature article about the Eldee penned by Chris Swallow.

Promotional poster Graphic of Les Diener racing Eldee-1 Velocette in the 1950s. The 2014 Classic TT Eldee Rider Bill Swallow is in the background. Illustration: Shaun Waugh.

This noisy quarter page ad was placed in Classic Racer mag in 2014. They say red advances, blue recedes, yes sure, but blue is cool, blue is clear, blue is electric, especially a solid panel of cyan on a busy page.

The goal of this highly readable short copy quarter page ad placed in Classic Racer magazine was to telegraph its message by standing out from the crowd in other words, it aimed to achieve page dominance.

ClassicRacer Magazine, half-page horizontal colour advert featuring the Eldee-2 classic racing machine in its sporting new race-ready livery.

Velocette ‘T.T. WINNERS’ badging detail, NZ Classic Motorcycle display, Pukekohe raceway Classic Racing event, Feb 2012.

Chris Swallow aboard the Eldee Velocette Special whips through the apex of the Hampton Downs’ sweeper at top speed.

Isle of Man Classic T.T. Junior Race. Bill Swallow rounds The Bungalow aboard Eldee 2 during practice. High quality landscape format giclée poster printed on heavy gloss photo paper, suitable for framing.

Isle of Man Classic T.T. Junior Race, 26 August 2014. Bill Swallow tipping into The Creg aboard Eldee 2. Commemorative Poster. Photo Credit: Dave Kneen manxphotosonline.com

Velocette Racing New Zealand’s 2014 project to rebuild and race the Velocette hand-built special, Eldee-2, at the Isle of Man Classic TT in August 2014 had its Australian beginning in the 1950s.

At the Hampton Downs Summer Classic racing event in February 2013 I joined the crew of classic Velocette motorcycle racers, automotive engineers and afficianodos. I undertook to provide the VRNZ team with the full multi-disciplinary designer’s kit of branding skills, graphic design, responsive web design, writing, advertising and promotions as required to publicise the 2014 project to their niche market of like-minded enthusiasts. VRNZ’s 2014 promotional and advertising campaign content on their website is a showcase of the home-brewed Kiwi project to build the fastest Velocette Lightweight Special of the 50s and race it in the Classic T.T., and a journal of “there and back again” and how they fared pitting the bike against the mountain course.

The VRNZ website is part of a straightforward brand toolkit. It aims not just to tell the story of a home-brewed colonial Velo’s return to the 2014 I.O.M. Classic TT, but to get their audience to connect powerfully with what drives the classic racing afficianodos behind the project. With the liberal use of noisy and dynamic action photos, with slideshow ‘visual essays’, short pithy videos, and both short and long-form articles about the machines and the personalities behind them, the site gets their enthusiast readers to ‘smell the Castrol’.

The brand manual and toolkit

Typographic design and handlettering plays a key role throughout VRNZ’s identity. Central are the fastidiously re-drawn pair of handlettered, slanted & looped, ‘Velocette’ and ‘Eldee Velocette’ brands. Alongside these is the VRNZ brand inspired by the commemorative ‘T.T. WINNERS’ badging that Velocette placed on the petrol tanks of their ‘K’ series motorcycles after their string of TT wins at the Isle of Man that began in the late 1920s.

In print, Trade Gothic, League Gothic and Compacta, are used throughout the VRNZ identity. The clarity of these fonts works well in print and online applications and complements the copperplate logotype. The colour palette of the website is limited to three colours, red, gold and black, that work together to reinforce the proud history of the Velocette marque. In print the palette is enhanced by a refreshing, agile cyan blue, and a bold red. The blue gives a nod to the colour Les Diener painted the Eldees and which I used to great effect in media advertising to convey a sense of clarity and speed. My goal of magazine page dominance with small ads was achieved.

Action photography

Great looking images play a key role as well in the brand toolkit. Enlarged and cropped, sometimes retouched composites of noisy and aggressive black and white action photos from the VRNZ archive are complimented by vivid ‘best-in-class’ contemporary photos shot by myself and other professionals, that reinforce the vitality of classic motorcycle racing downunder in the 21st century across all marques.

Illustration

In the heyday of classic motorcycle racing, in the period from the teens through to the 1960s illustration was essential to the promotion of the Manx TT both in advertising and posters for the event and for advertising the individual marques. Styles varied from dynamic ‘boys-own’ paintings to mixed-media collages of photos, airbrushing and comic-book art illustrative techniques.

Les Diener made the first Eldee Special in the 50s so illustrations based on the photos of him riding the bike back then are a great choice for a creative direction with a strong point of difference for the campaign publicity launch February–April 2014.

The Process

Working closely with the client the process began by fully researching the racing of classic motorcycles, Velocettes and the Eldee Velo in particular and by attending several 3-day classic racing events in the role of action and documentary photographer between 2012—14. I soon got bitten by the classic racing bug.

The website brief is for the focus to be on articles written by Classic motorcycle racers and afficianodos targeting an audience of the same. Various VRNZ team members wrote content, and I established a liaison with Bike Rider New Zealand magazine and republished several of their articles on the Eldee-2 I.O.M. project. The Isle of Man Classic TT 2014 was the destination, the VRNZ blog paired with Facebook page journaled the process of getting to the Isle of Man Classic TT and then what happened at the event. The website and blog paired with a 6 month advertising campaign in relevant Classic Racing enthusiast magazines worldwide linked the Eldee-2 Classic TT 2014 project with the global audience of classic racing enthusiasts.

The website design and build

The Wordpress platform, and my multi-disciplinary capabilities offered VRNZ the best fit with the brief, budget and urgent requirement to kick-start the site’s establishment within a very tight time-frame in February 2014. The WordPress platform enables steadily building the breadth and depth of the site content with each new Velocette racing project from 2014 onwards.

Three hand lettered classic Eldee logos and badges

Aside from strong imagery, bespoke content written by Classic motorcycle racers, the cornerstone of the website was the development of a suite of 3 new brands; a vector re-creation of the Velocette marque, a new Velocette Racing New Zealand logo, and a pair of Eldee Velocette badge design variations to put the finishing touches on the race-ready Eldee-2.

The key role of merchandise

Three of the Eldee-2 2014 project team members; Murray Aitken, Shaun Chamberlain and Phil Price were among those that had hands-on involvement in the ‘Britten V1000’—the handbuilt race motorcycle designed and built by John Britten and friends in Christchurch New Zealand during the early 1990s. The received wisdom from them is that the role of merchandise to the ongoing sustainability of that project financially was significant. So it was a priority that a custom range of tshirts be merchandised on the website within 2 months of it going live.

To commemorate both the launch of the Eldee-2 in July 2014 I flew to Wellington to shoot a set of heroic publicity photos of the bike equipped and ready for the IOM. In addition to publicity, I made the photos immediately useful for the campaign as merchandise, working up two images into an advertising and promotional poster campaign of merchandise for the team to take with them to the Isle of Man.

TAKE A LOOK AT THE VRNZ WEBSITE