PUMA Fishtail Rides.
Ride a different side of your city.
PUMA Middle East approached M&B to define and create a brand new fixed gear community in Dubai.
Project scope
Brand Strategy, Brand Naming, Identity, Film, Photography, Print, Art Direction, Music
The project rolled out in multiple stages. The first stage involved the creation of the brand, the identity system, a launch campaign film, photography and soundtrack; collaborating with local artists Hamden Al Abri and Megadon Betamax to produce the song ‘Chase The Sun Away’. All culminating in a launch event that took over Alserkal Avenue.
We defined the brand's positioning as ‘ride a different side of your city’. In a young city, disparate and sparse, a city ruled by cars and taxis, there is little connection to the streets. Fishtail Rides was been born out of this feeling and a need to reconnect with the streets of Dubai. It’s not a race or a fancy fitness group, it’s as complicated as people + fixies = good times.
The identity needed to inspire and encourage fixed gear riders, enthusiasts and the uninitiated to come along for a ride. The name itself was inspired by the motion created from a rear wheel skidding on a fixed gear bicycle, also known as ‘fishtailing’. We incorporated three key elements to create the icon - wheel, frame and fishtail. The stencil typography was chosen to appeal to the custom fits and finishes fixed gear riders apply to their rides.
The launch campaign was just the beginning. The second stage of the project were the rides themselves. Each month PUMA would host a ride around Dubai.
Project scope:
Ride Naming, Identity, Collateral
M&B, in close collaboration with the PUMA team, would define a unique name, identity and route to take riders on. Start locations were kept a closely guarded secret and the invites designed were your ticket to ride. Wether an instant film camera or a pair of retro sunglasses, each invite gave clues to the rides overall theme.
PUMA Fishtail Rides quickly gained huge interest. In total six rides were held, amassing a fantastic social media following, building a solid community and marketing initiative for PUMA Middle East. Due to its success PUMA took Fishtail Rides to South Africa starting a Johannesburg chapter.
With so much incredible content created over the course of the activation, PUMA wanted to create a limited edition coffee table book to commemorate Fishtail Rides.
Project scope:
Book Design, Art Direction
The book showcases the entire journey from initial brand identity creation to the never before seen behind the scenes making of the launch film that kicked things off. Each chapter is dedicated to one of the unique rides – Flight Path at the Skydive Dubai airstrip, Creek Safari through cultural Bastakiya, Coast On By riding Jumeirah with the Dosnoventa crew to name just a few.
In between chapters is the PUMA Select 2014 AW photoshoot art directed especially for the book.
