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Bike Brains: Finishing touches




This Week I went back to the "Thing Tank" to complete my helmet.


In Sure Cuts Alot 3 I mirrored my original design on it's vertical axis.

I listen to the plotter symphony as I wait for my vinyl to cut.



Weeding time, went so much better this time with the exacto than previously with the hair plucker.



Weeding complete, someone made some setting changes to the plotter lowering the pressure and oddly worked in my favor making the cut vinyl slightly harder to peel off allowing for better control.


Here I did the transfer with the lower adhesive large width transfer masking tape which worked perfectly in transferring the vinyl. compared to the hellish nightmare of regular masking tape and the sticky ramainder  


After some tricky applying of the vinyl to the helmet here its is with both sides applied  (front view)


Rear (view)



One sad thing that I had already expected was the mirroring of the three sisters mountains makes their distinct silhouette unrecognizable on this left side, though it is still readable as a mountain range which is what is important.


So that's the end of this project as I take it for a test drive on my bike.

The helmet s surface has now been redesigned to reflect elements of myself changing how a person interprets this head wear.
 Though to most I suppose they will just assume this helmet re-skin is trying preach safe practices of wearing a helmet while cycling/boarding, or maybe to allow for clearer design affordances of the helmet as unfashionable hat that actually worn in order to protect ones brain.

And yes I did want to incorporate the object agency of the helmet into my design but I also decided to hide the three sisters mountain range withing the tissue detail of the brain because, this is my brain and this is what I'm thinking about.

And much like people who get tattoos that are personal, written in exotic languages or symbols requiring privileged knowledge to access and understand, this mountain symbol has a central meaning in my life.

I have spent most of my life in Alberta and much of that time I have spent in the Rocky Mountains. As a child I would go skiing every weekend, and in the summer months would go day hiking with family and friends. Later when I turned 18 I decided to live and work in Canmore during my summer break at ACAD and have done this for the past 3 years. Jumping to every outdoor opportunity that would arise on my days off work and away from the 9-5 world.
 There's something special about this place that isn't easy to describe. Being so close to wilderness allows you to be placed in environments where there is no food or shelter other than what you take with you, It makes you feel small and insignificant and most importantly it makes you feel alive, in a first world country where our survival is almost a given.

There's a quote by the philosopher and naturalist John Muir that goes:
"The mountains are calling and I must go" 

And like him and many of the people affected by this landscape, the mountains to me are always calling, always on my mind. Always feeling a yearn to return to the closest thing i know to the 
"real" world.


This is a photograph of myself atop Mt. LadyMacdonald, to the right of me in the distance is the three sisters peak trio. These 3 peaks are the symbol of the town of Canmore and can be seen from nearly any point of the city.


(3 sisters closeup on helmet)

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