As I blogged back in July, we have been working with Alpinestars and Ducati factory MotoGP team rider Nicky Hayden on a special lettering project. Since Nicky hails from nearby Owensboro, Kentucky, we thought it would be cool to do a special version of his Kentucky Kid moniker for the Indianapolis MotoGP race.
We started off with some tasty original Ken Barber lettering…
…then the folks at the northern Italy-based Alpinestars factory did an amazing job of stitching it down.
I’m not saying that this lettering is fast or anything, but Nicky put himself on the front row in Saturday’s qualifying session…
…and kept the rubber side down in Sunday’s race despite difficult conditions and the 120 degree track temperature.
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Posted by Rich Roat on September 1, 2010
I did a little ride-by on the House Industries-David Dodde skunk works and production facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan to see how things are coming together. We’ll be talking about this new space a lot more in the near future, but I thought I’d put up some spy photos.
First, a jenyouine smokestack for our proprietary iron smelter:
You can’t get this drywall tape at your local big box supply store:
Tried to take a picture of a screen, but the drying rack was in the way:
It was hot, but we couldn’t get the windows open.
Improvise, adapt, reuse, recycle:
You’ll see why we have this if you come to our Los Angeles show in December:
Order a maple block print, and David will push some ink through this:
Stay tuned for more about The Factory.
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Posted by Rich Roat on August 31, 2010
…by Pittsburgh-based illustrator Michael Smith.
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Posted by Rich Roat on August 20, 2010
We’re helping the Challenge Program rustle up some more cash for their new building, so I spent the day with Ray and Jill at Lead Graffiti to print a fundraiser invite.
Here’s Chris Gardner’s rendering of DIGSAU’s design reversed in polymer, inked up and ready to go.
I even dragged a few program participants along to teach them a little about printing history and let them do the hard work while I sat back and tried to take decent pics.
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Posted by Rich Roat on August 18, 2010
Andy, Adam and I took a ride up the turnpike to set up for our booth at the annual tchotchke souk that is International Gift Fair in New York’s Jerry Javits center. If you’re of the mind to run the gauntlet, we’re in booth 4043 August 15-19.
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Posted by Rich Roat on August 15, 2010
Twisting a throttle and dragging a knee is a mere fraction of the time commitment required to ride the fastest and most technically sophisticated motorcycle in the world, so I was glad to have a few minutes to discuss a special Alpinestars/House Industries project with Nicky Hayden at Laguna Seca.
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Posted by Rich Roat on July 28, 2010
Alpinestars represents the highly engineered layer of leather that keeps a MotoGP rider’s flesh and bones intact when they hit the pavement at high speed, which is fairly often when your occupation is to push a brutally powerful and incredibly complex prototype motorcycle to the limits of gravity, grip and guts.
As their guest at the Laguna Seca MotoGP race, I was able to look over the shoulders of the craftspeople whose mission it is to continuously refine and improve the racing suits, gloves and boots.
When you think about it, they have the most important supporting role at the racetrack.
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Posted by Rich Roat on July 28, 2010
