So my final week at Tribe has arrived. I surprised the guys with a box full of donuts from Dough. They were super stoked, and were amazed by how delicious they are. It was my way of thanking them for bringing me on board. The internship turned out to be a great experience. I couldn’t have picked a better company to work for.

This week at Tribe, Wyatt asked if we can get started on the new website banners. The banners on the site currently are pretty haggard, so we need to bring a new flare to the website. This will be my final assignment for them aside from the catalogue. I promised the guys I wouldn’t leave any projects unfinished. The guys hired a photographer to do lifestyle shots so Wyatt was waiting on the photographer to send over some photos so I can finish both the banners and catalogue.

While I was getting ready to leave, Mitch spoke to me about another decal assignment, but this time they are hiring me. Its funny how things work. The one assignment that stressed me out the most is the one that they want to pay me for. So we’ll see how far my relationship with Tribe goes.

This week was not that exciting. I had to tweak some things on the handlebar packaging for the printer. Pretty simple stuff, the only issue was that Wyatt was the middle man. I’m used to dealing with the printer direct, instead of someone relaying the printer’s message. There were a few questions I had but I figured out what the printer really needed.

Besides the handlebar packaging, the other company involved with the bike shelf completely changed the mounting instructions. I needed to rework the whole file to compensate for the new copy I was given to use. I needed to really plan this out before I started shifting things around. The design worked really well before and I tried to not mess that up. The email that I had received with the corrections had the wrong dimensions. Mitch and I found out the hard way. After going back and forth for a while, he finally realized what was wrong. Once we got that sorted, I finished the file and I think I like this version more. I’m really glad that they changed the mounting instructions!

During the weekend, Mitch emailed me that they hired a few art students to paint their outside gate. He wanted me to create a stencil of their logo and design a logo for the neighborhood, Red Hook. Mitch specified that he wanted to use a big red hook, the hook being the universal symbol of the neighborhood. Within a few hours I knocked it out. They needed the file to be set up for a laser machine, which they would use to cut out the stencil. I’ve never really done anything like that. I’ve created files for a laser machine to cut through plexi-glass, but this was totally different. After a few tries, I finally got it done.

There were a few other little things the guys needed. Tribe teamed up with a few cycling companies and one of them wanted to create a cycling jersey with Tribe’s logo on it. I received the specs and I got started on it right away. Both were fairly easy tasks, but I cant wait to see how they come out!

The Red Hook Crit is here! In all of the 7 years working in the cycling industry, this was my first RHC ever. I was pretty excited, I knew a lot of people who were going to race, and I bumped into a lot of customers at the race. Before I headed to the race I joined the guys at Tribe for the official Red Hook Crit party. Their good friends at Sixpoint Brewery provided us with a ton of beer, about 600 cans!

Overall it was a great night. Mitch and Wyatt introduced me to everyone as their graphic designer, which I thought was pretty cool. The whole experience was awesome. I’m so happy that the guys and I had the chance to knock a few ones back and unwind with each other.

New bike day! Mitch gave me the heads up that I would be receiving a bike of my choice in exchange for all of my hard work. Sweet deal! As soon as he asked me, I blurted out that I was one of their track bikes (the most expensive bike they have). When I arrived at the office, the guys presented my brand new bike. I’m so excited to get this bad boy hooked up and ready to go.

Other than the new bike, the guys and I discussed my new project. I’m going to design their catalogue, which will be sent out to all of their dealers and other bike shops across the US. Pretty awesome. I have a lot of experience designing publications so this assignment shouldn’t be too difficult. They want me to design a template so that when they receive the product shots of the new bikes, they can just past them right in. This should be a really interesting assignment given that I won’t be around to help with the final version.

The day before going into the office, I received an email from Mitch. He sent over the a few photos of the bike shelf with my packaging on. It came out SO AWESOME. I thanked him for giving me the opportunity. The shelves are going to be sold through a cycling distributor called BTI and a small mom and pop store called Made in Brooklyn.

My next assignment is to design some t-shirts. Wyatt showed me a few lifestyle brands he’s interested in, and what style he prefers. I completely understand what he wants. On the other side, Mitch wants to keep it simple and use their logo with maybe a few symbols to spruce it up a bit. While they were going at it, I made a few samples of badges and placed them on some shirt mock-ups. They loved the direction but never finalized anything with me. We were thinking about making a t shirt for a bike event that takes place in the neighborhood called The Red Hook Crit. It’s a world famous race where riders compete on a very technical track on fixed gear bikes. The shirts would be targeted to the tourists that come to Brooklyn for the event. For now its just an idea, but it isn’t a confirmed assignment.

My next assignment on top of the shelf is to design a banner that will go to every dealer in the United States. Pretty exciting stuff! I’m pretty much done with the shelf packaging so I don’t have too much on my plate right now. I sat with the guys and they expressed their interest in Obey’s style. They wanted something very similar, if not exactly the same. So I began researching.

Obey is a street wear brand. Their style is propaganda based with a lot of ornaments and use mainly 3 colors in all of their designs. I’m pretty familiar with the brand but I’ve never designed anything like this before. I decided to go to one of my close friends for advice. She’s obsessed with the brand and I knew she could point me in the right direction. There are a lot of elements in Obey’s designs, and it is very easy to “over do it”. Thankfully, she sent me a bunch of files with ornaments that I can use. This was a huge lifesaver.

After playing around with the ornaments for a while, I decided to give myself a mental break. Like I mentioned before, I had never done anything like this before so I was a little out of my comfort zone. This was a good thing. Although it took me a while, I pushed myself and created a pretty cool looking banner. I probably wouldn’t hang it my room, but it’s exactly what the guys wanted. A few hours after sending Wyatt the file, I received an email that said “looks awesome!” I can’t wait to see this thing printed.

Last week was pretty rough. I know it is a part of my job to give whatever the client wants and make sure that they are happy. I fully understand that, but boy last week sucked. In the midst of finalizing the decals, I managed to get started on the bike shelf packaging.

When I arrived at the office, Mitch greeted me with his huge smile. He apologized for the workload and told me that he wants to compensate me for everything that I have done. He mentioned giving me a bike, which would be really cool. I started working on the shelf packaging while at the office when Mitch pulled out a list of corrections Wyatt didn’t mention in the emails. The dreaded decals have come back to haunt me. Thankfully, all of the corrections were for decals that were already made by the previous designer. The only corrections that needed to be made were resizing the decals and deleted backgrounds. As we were going through all of them, Mitch realized that one of the logos that was created a long time ago had a typo. Bicycle was spelled “bicyle.” It was a good thing he caught it because I preparing to send the files to the factory. Although it wasn’t my mistake, I still felt really bad. I felt responsible for not catching the typo which is part of my job. I think I didn’t double check because it was a preexisting logo, everything should have been good.

Once the corrections were made, the decals were sent to the factory. Finally! By the time I was done it was time for me to go to class. I have to finish the shelf packaging by the end of this week. I already have a pretty good idea of which direction I’m taking and I think its coming along great. We’ll see what the guys think once I’m done.

This week was a drag. I caught the plague so I wasn’t feeling too good. The guys asked me if I was interested in doing the bike decals for the new fleet of bikes. Of course I said yes, I’m not going to turn down any opportunity these guys give me. I received my first set of instructions via email. The only trouble was that it needed to be completed before the end of the week.

Not sure if Wyatt is just horrible at explaining what he wants through email or I’m not great at receiving instructions through email but the email was super complicated. There was a lot of information missing, so I asked the appropriate questions and got started on the assignment.

Wyatt was on a road trip down south so it was very difficult to get a hold of him fairly quickly. Emails would come in every other hour with some more corrections and instructions. Wyatt would tell me what he wanted for new frame decals and I would give him what he wanted. A few hours later, I would get another email saying, “Great job, but lets try something like this…” After the 15th email, I was running out of juice. To be honest I was getting pretty frustrated. I was going on a 13-hour workday going back and forth trying to get these decals perfect. 36 emails later, we’re finally making some progress. I sent in a final file to be reviewed and heard back from Wyatt and Mitch with their favorites. I felt super relived now that it was over. In the midst of all of the emails, Mitch gave me another assignment that needed to be completed very soon. The guys did a collaboration with a wood shop and created a bike shelf. They asked if I could create the packaging for it and I’m super excited to get started!

When I arrived at the Tribe office this week, I asked Mitch and Wyatt about the production that goes in to the handlebar tape packaging. Specifically, I wanted to know if the factory in China would send them a prototype to make sure the packaging comes out perfect before they go into production. I was a starting to get a little nervous because I had created a mechanical from scratch, and they’re spending tons of money on producing what I had created. I always triple check my work before handing it in, but I couldn’t help thinking about the box coming out smaller than originally intended, and all of that money going to waste. The guys seemed a little non-chalant with my questions. It was as if they were so used to sending files to factories in China and not really worrying about it till it arrives.

Needless to say, I wanted to be sure that the measurements I was given were precise and there wouldn’t be any surprises once the shipment arrives in May. I asked if there was a print studio in the area, given that it is a very industrial/artsy neighborhood, and as expected there was one located just up the block. I asked if we can get a print out of the box just to make sure it was perfect and they agreed that it was a good idea. About an hour later we had the print and Wyatt cut out the box and we set the handlebar tape inside and it looked AWESOME. They absolutely loved my idea to put their shield as the window so that customers can see the bar tape. It came out really great with the exception of a little wiggle room on the sides. The tape moved around a little in the box, so I needed to adjust the measurements. Other than that, the box came out pretty awesome. I can’t wait to see the final product in May.