The Tree was designed around being eco-friendly in so many aspects, from it’s concept to creation to it’s name. The colour we chose is directly associated with the name we chose, it was up to me to decide where we where going with the colour scheme.

We talked about browns and greens, very earthy colours the whole time. Eventually we decided on the matt black, by a combination of peoples interest and our needs as a far as what we wanted the bike to represent. It is not a sporty colour it is solid and dependable. They don’t say flash. The bike grabs your attention by what it is, not how nice it looks.

When I came along in the production of the bike we already had the name. The name kinda sells itself. In the end we found it a representation of our vision and the ethic of the shop.

When looking at a graphic we explored both rural and urban trees.  Coming from a rural island lifestyle I went with more of a mountain side tree at first but then through some feedback I decided to go for more an urban tree something you would see while biking to work.

The one graphic we finally choose was the single tree with a great silhouette. It was originally going to be on the top of the bike and have lines wrap around the bar, all designs change a little bit before production. There was a simplicity to it that everyone just really liked.

The bike is a workhorse.

If you know what your looking at. Your going to look at the bike and say that is really well made, it is really though out. I think all of the stuff we brainstormed about showed up in the end product really well.

I was unable to visit the factory with Darcy and ilan. But from what they told me the bike looked pretty sharp.

When I first saw it, I got to see it in the box all packed up. Living in a consumer culture you love opening new products some time your impressed, sometimes your not so much. This time it had a more personal touch, seeing something of mine on a pretty major product I was excited.

When it was built and realized that the simplicity of the design, the colours we chose and the placement of logo everything just turned out really wonderfully.

We aren’t really trying to brand the bike, we’re trying people to get people to look at the quality of the bike itself, not at who made it or who made the parts we wanted people to look at a quality that make it a nicely designed bike.

We styled the Tree logo much like Devinci’s current style, not out of any request, but I out of fairness to Devinci. They have their styles going and their branding. It helps us to work with them in that way to create something in their current styles, straight up it just looks good.

Category: Story

Tags: bicycle, branding, city, concept, design, handwelded, logo, sketches, sustainable, Tree bike