logo - brand identity - illustration
Velo Klubhaus, created by the charismatic John Mullineaux, is a gravel cycling blog venturing into creating iconic local gravel routes and regular group rides in Göttingen.
"We put lots of ideas to Craig at Window Gazing, some vague and others specific. Craig was able to make sense of it all and after outlining his ideas he then walked us through taking it to print. What has pleased us most is that when we give people our material, they love it and this we hope will help us to grow awareness because we have created, with Craig´s help, a quality product that reflects well upon us." John Mullineaux - organiser
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Forming an open dialogue
Being two Brits in a foreign city and mad on cycling, John and I got together for gravel rides and a sympathetic ear. This was the start an open dialogue on his vision of Velo Klubhaus as a brand. The value of spending time on that early but crucial stage cannot be overestimated.
The problem
After seeing some of my work, John asked if I could help him create a brand identity and series of postcards for some gravel routes he had developed. He was looking for something that he could hand out on group rides and that would be kept and cherished, but not be fixed to the same graphic style.
Creating a new identity
The Velo Klubhaus typeface came first. The name splits nicely into three equal parts to form a square. The rolling e and o nod towards its cycling intent and the long u ties klub and haus together. The rest was a matter of sharing shapes to make a cohesive original typeface.
The GÖ bicycle logo (short form of Göttingen city) is crucial to the overall identity and acts as an anchor to all of John's route names, e.g. 'GÖ Strade Bianche'. It freed me up to create the different stylistic looks for each poster that reflect the features and mood of the route, but still tie them all together as a whole.
A new visual identity released into the wild
Velo Klubhaus has grown into a group effort, with a growing audience of keen gravel riders. The flexible yet recognisable visual language we have created has now grown with it.
* Group rides go under the title GÖ Gravel with its own logo, an extension of the GÖ bike.
* We produced a calendar for 2023 with an illustration, crest and themed ride for each season.
* A new ride challenge called the GrallyCat was created, again with its own logo and illustrated poster based off the Göttingen lion emblem and the idea of the challenge linking 20 different points via the beautiful gravel roads surrounding Göttingen.