Zetland Bikes

When else would you get the chance to draw a chunky pony?

A handcrafted (and slightly overweight) brand illustration based on the infamous Shetland Pony, paired with custom lettering all packed together to make these British-made bikes burn through modern hyper-serious brand design.
Year: 2022
Client: Zetland Bikes
Working with Will – the founder and chief bike builder – this project allowed me to realise a life long dream, to have my work on branded upon a bicycle. The name Zetland comes for the ancient name for the Shetland isles, so it only made sense that the logo should be a stout and chunky pony as a homage to the beasts that reside there.

As these bikes are made in the traditional manner, hand bending and forming steel tubes, the brand needed to match that spirit of ‘doing things properly’. Will and myself worked on no less than 10 potential ponies to act as the brand’s mascot and icon, a commitment to the brand and it’s superb quality bikes.

As applying the brand to the bike would be done through powder coating or metal stamping, the logo had to make sense in any colour or material so a keen application of negative space was used to dress it’s impressive mane and sculpt it’s podgy belly—there is yet to be another piece of work in my portfolio that’s again as much adoration as this portly fellow.

More Projects