I was introduced to Laurie Mansworth through Rocky Newton. Rocky is the bass player for the band as well as the bass guitarist for the rock band, Lionheart. This was off the back of me having just completed the artwork for Lionhearts 'Second Nature' album. Airrace were also amist recording their brand new album, 'Untold Stories'.
Airrace and Lionheart planned a joint tour at the beginning of December 2017 and I created some joint tour posters and banners in the August of this year.
News had just come in that Airrace were being signed by Frontiers Music. Having shared various social media posts on both the Airrace and Facebook pages, Laurie approached me to create an advert for their new single 'Eyes Like Ice'. This was going to be placed in the next 'CLASSIC ROCK MAGAZINE' issue.
Design and creation of the half page advert (210mm x 148.5mm) - see above.
For the upcoming Airrace/Lionheart tour, Airrace planned to set up a Merch Stand, a full suite of artwork was created: Pull-up banners, Bottle openers, Pens, Guitar picks, Earplugs, Stickers, Postcards and t-shirts.
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The starting point was to re-create the AIRRACE logo. The original logo had been created in the early 1980's and due to my technical illustration background, I felt the logo should be 'refreshed', whist retaining its distinctive look. This process was based around the original AIRRACE logo by re-creating in Adobe Illustrator. Guide lines were added to establish the angles and form - it appeared the logo had been constructed around 48 degree lines - All except the top and bottom edges of the letter 'E':
above: Original Airrace logo
So I set about re-creating this logo with 45 degree lines and adding consitency of all 'angular' lines. The original logo had a mix of curves (letters 'R' & 'C') and straight lines ('A', 'I' & 'E'). The letter slopes were re-drawn at 45 degree angles and all curves removed, resulting in an
above: Newly designed Airrace logo
updated, clean look whilst keeping the AIRRACE logo recognisable and fresh.
above: 900mm x 300 sticker - Newly designed Airrace logo
On the Pull-up stand and for the t-shirt design, Laurie wanted the iconic 'Shaft of Light' logo re-created:
As we didn't have the original artwork, I set about re-creating the AIRRACE logo in Adobe Illustrator based on the newly designed logo for the merchandising.
above: Shaft Of Light 'Airrace' logo redesign showing how the construction was created using various perspective vanishing points based around the new AIRRACE logo.
below: Final completed artwork - 'Airrace' - Shaft Of Light 2017
below: LEFT: 1982 design | Right: 2017 design
below: 2017 tour t-shirt
A second design t-shirt was also created,
a simplified SHAFT OF LIGHT design as shown below:
The newly created Merchandise Pull Up Stand:
Alongside all the merchandising design's, I was honoured as Laurie asked me to design and create the upcoming AIRRACE album cover, booklet and packaging.
Below is the finished logo along with the album artwork - UNTOLD STORIES
When opened produces the two eyes - Due to the booklet page restriction from 16 pages to 12, the rear booklet page obsures the eye with the band photo.
With band photo and track listing (Japanese version)
Brilliant work mate, thank you very much - Thanks again Tristan for a great job.
Laurie Mansworth, from AIRRACE