Case studies and inspiration
Motorcycle racing and track days are great fun but they are risky for your pride and joy. Many riders purchase a set of aftermarket body work to use on track and we are often asked to recreate legendary liveries in cost-efficient vinyl wraps or decals.
Marlboro Yamaha is an iconic Grand Prix livery from the 1980s and 90s – think Kocinski, Rainey, Mackenzie and many more. A long term client brought along a Yamaha R1, the brief was to create a tribute to the Marlboro era with a few personal touches to make it his own.
We added some additional speedstripe styled patterns and installed a set of sponsors stickers to the bellypan taking care that the angles followed the shape and pitch of the motorcycle.
- Fairing wrap with custom race livery
- Flourescent red and white vinyl with large lettering
- Professionally installed with tricky contours
- Aftermarket bodywork for cost effective repairs
The challenge
Settling on a design
The first task was to create the design, complete with personalised logo, and get it approved by the customer. We presented flat visuals for him to understand how it was going to look. Once agreed on colours and design we were ready to start printing and installing.
Challenging shapes
Motorcycles always have many obscure bends and curves it is always important to consider this when designing the livery. Much of this design would be cut vinyl such as the large Marlboro lettering. Howver, there were some areas where we wanted to include printed graphics for both decals and sponsors.
Getting a perfect fit
The most effective way to achieve perfectly fitting vinyl graphics is to use transfer tape. We individually trace the shape of the bike’s panels to ensure the result is exact and accounts for all the complex angles.
We used this method to print on to our clear vinyl which was then applied over the areas we had already wrapped in the fluorescent colour.
Printing on to clear vinyl can be challenging when applied over a very bold or dark colour. It is essential to produce a strong print that will avoid show-through, this is even more of a problem if you are also applying white as we were here.
Getting the angles right
This livery had the flourescent colours, bright white, huge lettering and also some smart carbon fibre look patterns.
To achieve the perfect finish we slowed down the printer to allow the ink a longer cure-time. We then overprint a number of times to create a dense layer of opaque ink.
The next challenge is to align the stripes perfectly along the angle of the machine whilst navigating the tight contours, vents and other disruptions to the smooth line that we needed to deliver. Having done this many times before we have developed our own technique for getting the lines perfectly positioned.
Motorbike graphics
track day bikes / classic bikes / race bikes / PIt bikes / Road bikes / Motorcrossers
sponsorship and RACE BIKE VINYLS
If you are planning on starting racing, you will soon need sponsors. We can provide a full graphic package to suit your budget, including a racing logo for name or team, we can brand your race van and wrap your race bike. Everyone loves stickers and they make great giveaways at race meetings or other events.
Impressing sponsors means getting their brand on display as much as possible. Social media is the perfect tool to share photographs of your racing and testing and track days, the sight of your sponsors logo being shared on socials is the key to keeping them happy.
Get in touch with your ideas and we can help you build a race livery for your team.
