Gift Cycles Brand Identity

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This brand identity was for Gift Cycles run by Providence (better known as Proff). He is a highly inspiring, intelligent man from Zimbabwe. Every night he can be found rotating his way around the restaurants in a suburb in Cape Town called Observatory selling his beautiful artworks. His artworks are bicycles, scooters and other promotional items made from wire, beads and recycled cans. He studied engineering in Zimbabwe so all the bits and pieces on the artworks actually work (the pedals pedal)! They really are incredible pieces. And I have never met a more passionate man. He really believes in his work. And so do I.

So we met to discuss what he needed in terms of branding that could help him sell more products. The first time I met him he gave me his details on a torn piece of paper. So the first thing we identified was a business card. His criteria were that it had to be green to reflect the eco-friendly side of his work, and it had to showcase the bicycles, as well as have his contact details on it. It also has to be easily replicable, because unless we find funding neither of us can afford to print the cards properly each time. So the design was made so that it can be photocopied.

The next step will be building him an online platform where people can learn more about his work and place big orders. His aim is to get really big orders from chain shops.

These are the bicycles that Proff and his team make from recycled cans, beads and wire. They are made to be card holders, the cards fit into the side of the bicycle.

My design of the bike. Needed to be simple and clean so that Proff can replicate the cards easily.

His latest range is a series of scooters made from old cans (such as Red Bull), beads and wire.

I started playing around with making the type for the business card out of wire, using a similar technique to the one he uses to make the bicycles. But I realised this wouldn't work for print as, once again, it needs to be a single colour.

Vector version of wire typography

Cutting the cards. I'm financing this project myself so have to find the most cost effective way of producing business cards. Total cost for 50 cards was R35 (and a bit of extra time).. not too bad!