10 Feb 2010
Article - 21.08.2006
While creating the look of its flagship store, designer Carby Tuckwell unlocked the spirit in the machine at Deus ex Machina.
Carby Tuckwell is sipping an espresso in the cafe at Deus Ex Machina, a motorcycle shop in Sydney's inner-west. 'Deus comes from a passion for motorcycles and all the stuff that surrounds that passion,' says Tuckwell, the 34-year-old behind all things graphic in the sprawling space, a store that sells everything from customised bikes to fashionable tee shirts. 'The whole [enterprise] is an amalgam of the functionality and practicality of the motorcycle and its historical influence which is a really interesting thing.'
Opened in late 2005, Deus is a collaboration between four passionate motorcyclists, including Mambo founder Dare Jennings, racer Nigel Begg, mechanic Rod Hunwick and Tuckwell. Their aim was to create a new kind of motorcycle shop, one that not only sold the kind of bikes and accessories that made their hearts sing, but one that also integrated the culture and aesthetic that has built up around single cylinder bikes, a phenomenon they felt was overlooked in the mainstream shops.
To create the look, Tuckwell says he relied as heavily on his own passions – motorcycles, design, fashion and pop culture – as he did on his experience as a brand consultant with Moon Design. Rather than try to create a lifestyle around the brand, Deus hopes to cultivate a brand around the lifestyle, he says. The books they read, the objects they lust after, the art and fashion they gravitate towards and the music they listen to are all part of that lifestyle, and the customised single cylinder motorcycle is at its center. Where better to start creating a graphic identity for Deus, thought Tuckwell, than at its heart?
'A motorcycle is intrinsically the perfect fusion of form and function,' says Tuckwell, a long-time motorcycle rider and 'tinkerer' by nature. (His press bio boasts of how he once customised the family lawn mower.) 'There was always this simplicity to motorcycles that we wanted to reinterpret and reinvent. [The single cylinder bikes we sell are] such minimal collections of nuts and bolts that everything [you do to them] ends up influencing the way they look. You can't just bolt something on because it's not hidden behind a piece of plastic. So the design process is fundamental from the very beginning. That kind of flows through to everything we do in here.'
The shop's look is as subtle and simple as the bikes for sale. The sponsor-mad sticker fest and riot of colour that rules over the world of contemporary sports bikes, and the bad boy posturing that has come to dominate the motorcycling vernacular, are nowhere to be seen. Instead the space, housed in an art deco industrial building, is raw but expertly spit-polished and the unmistakable trace of the human hand is ever-present. The style lends an air of warmth and authenticity to this ode to the machine.
Tuckwell's drawings are another important part of the equation. A hand-painted black and white logo dominates the back wall and several bold line drawings of motorcycles and engines stretch almost from floor to ceiling on the painted white brick walls. The same gorgeous graphics are printed on tee shirts and for sale as part of Deus' clothing line. ('You're always going to need something to wear, so the tee shirts were the first cab off the rank,' says the designer.) In homage to the bikes that fuel Tuckwell's passion, the graphics are stripped back and spare, timeless and thrifty but undeniably sexy.
'[These graphics] are sympathetic to the bikes,' says Tuckwell. 'There were some directions we headed off in that were probably more traditional motorcycling culture but they didn't seem right, so we moved over into the more handmade side of it. It feels a little more considered and organic. When I'm drawing these bikes, I'm only drawing the things that really matter.'
Like the company's name suggests, it's the spirit in the machine that Tuckwell is trying to capture. He wants to distill the experience. Deus is not just a new kind of bike shop, it also represents a new kind of retailing, seeing itself as trading in experience as much as merchandise. Shopping for retailers like Deus is part entertainment, part self-expression, and the store is conceived of as a community hub. It's a nail that's hard to hit but Tuckwell's well thought out graphic design goes a long way towards securing the concept's success.
You can see the graphic identity Tuckwell created for Deus ex Machina in the new exhibition In your face: contemporary graphic design, 5 August-5 November at the Powerhouse Museum for Sydney Design 06.
Sydney Design 06
Deus Ex Machina
Moon Design
TAGS
+ Motorcycle
+ Single cylinder
+ Sydney Design 06
+ In your face: contemporary graphic design
Opened in late 2005, Deus is a collaboration between four passionate motorcyclists, including Mambo founder Dare Jennings, racer Nigel Begg, mechanic Rod Hunwick and Tuckwell. Their aim was to create a new kind of motorcycle shop, one that not only sold the kind of bikes and accessories that made their hearts sing, but one that also integrated the culture and aesthetic that has built up around single cylinder bikes, a phenomenon they felt was overlooked in the mainstream shops.
To create the look, Tuckwell says he relied as heavily on his own passions – motorcycles, design, fashion and pop culture – as he did on his experience as a brand consultant with Moon Design. Rather than try to create a lifestyle around the brand, Deus hopes to cultivate a brand around the lifestyle, he says. The books they read, the objects they lust after, the art and fashion they gravitate towards and the music they listen to are all part of that lifestyle, and the customised single cylinder motorcycle is at its center. Where better to start creating a graphic identity for Deus, thought Tuckwell, than at its heart?
'A motorcycle is intrinsically the perfect fusion of form and function,' says Tuckwell, a long-time motorcycle rider and 'tinkerer' by nature. (His press bio boasts of how he once customised the family lawn mower.) 'There was always this simplicity to motorcycles that we wanted to reinterpret and reinvent. [The single cylinder bikes we sell are] such minimal collections of nuts and bolts that everything [you do to them] ends up influencing the way they look. You can't just bolt something on because it's not hidden behind a piece of plastic. So the design process is fundamental from the very beginning. That kind of flows through to everything we do in here.'
The shop's look is as subtle and simple as the bikes for sale. The sponsor-mad sticker fest and riot of colour that rules over the world of contemporary sports bikes, and the bad boy posturing that has come to dominate the motorcycling vernacular, are nowhere to be seen. Instead the space, housed in an art deco industrial building, is raw but expertly spit-polished and the unmistakable trace of the human hand is ever-present. The style lends an air of warmth and authenticity to this ode to the machine.
Tuckwell's drawings are another important part of the equation. A hand-painted black and white logo dominates the back wall and several bold line drawings of motorcycles and engines stretch almost from floor to ceiling on the painted white brick walls. The same gorgeous graphics are printed on tee shirts and for sale as part of Deus' clothing line. ('You're always going to need something to wear, so the tee shirts were the first cab off the rank,' says the designer.) In homage to the bikes that fuel Tuckwell's passion, the graphics are stripped back and spare, timeless and thrifty but undeniably sexy.
'[These graphics] are sympathetic to the bikes,' says Tuckwell. 'There were some directions we headed off in that were probably more traditional motorcycling culture but they didn't seem right, so we moved over into the more handmade side of it. It feels a little more considered and organic. When I'm drawing these bikes, I'm only drawing the things that really matter.'
Like the company's name suggests, it's the spirit in the machine that Tuckwell is trying to capture. He wants to distill the experience. Deus is not just a new kind of bike shop, it also represents a new kind of retailing, seeing itself as trading in experience as much as merchandise. Shopping for retailers like Deus is part entertainment, part self-expression, and the store is conceived of as a community hub. It's a nail that's hard to hit but Tuckwell's well thought out graphic design goes a long way towards securing the concept's success.
You can see the graphic identity Tuckwell created for Deus ex Machina in the new exhibition In your face: contemporary graphic design, 5 August-5 November at the Powerhouse Museum for Sydney Design 06.
Sydney Design 06 Deus Ex Machina Moon Design TAGS
+ Motorcycle
+ Single cylinder
+ Sydney Design 06
+ In your face: contemporary graphic design