As I was crawling around the Internet the other day, I stumbled upon a really cool and creative graphic design project. It is a really fun and imaginative project that I immediately wanted to share. This project is called 100 Hoopties and it was created by Jennifer Beatty. Jennifer is both a graphic designer and a cyclist who was seeking to bridge her two passions into one as a part of her Masters in Branding degree that she is pursuing at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
So what is this awesome project?
Jennifer decided to recreate 100 iconic logos and other recognizable designs using old bicycle parts that she found lying around. She committed to making 100 new bicycle art posters in 100 days, from April 7th to July 15th, 2014.
The result… an amazing project that is innovative and very inspiring. Born out of her love for art, design and cycling, this project speaks volumes about her talent as a designer and of course, her passion for cycling. It shows me that a little self-discipline can go a long way. Not only did she complete her Masters program with this project, she also nourished her creative spirit and created something new that stirred up quite a bit of good publicity for herself as a designer and creative.
Jenny Beatty
She explains on her website that each individual art piece took her about 1-2 hours to complete. However, that is just the time allotted for the design phase and it does not include all the extra time that she needed to photograph each new creation, to research each individual design and to write about it for her Masters project.
Some of the designs in her poster collection revolve around movie posters that she says were an inspiration to her as she got her start in the world of design. She also recreated a lot of iconic logo designs and brands that have inspired her over the years. Many of these logo designs were created by some of the world’s most famous designers.
As to her technique, Jennifer explains that, “For the posters that are mostly bike chain, I start from the outside and work in – creating a natural spiral effect with the pieces of chain.” Amazing! “The most difficult part of making the posters is the typography. It means that I have to cut chain exact to size and hope that I can maintain proper leading and kerning. Also difficult are the posters with a lot of spiraled chain or intricate shapes. The chain moves around so much that you have to be very careful not to knock anything else out of place as you spiral the chain around and around. The derailleur end caps like to roll all over the place when placing them, so I have to hold my breath when placing them.”
This project is an inspiration to me. I hope that it also inspires other people out there to get moving and create. What are you waiting for? Why not start your very own 100 day project today!
* All images for this post were taken from the 100hoopties.com website.