ALUTO’s graphic concept

With an engineering focus on creating a bike capable of fast performance and bold adventure, the ALUTO’s graphic design needed to reflect and amplify that message. Factor bikes are not only beautifully functional, they are visually stunning, and the ALUTO follows this tradition. Factor Creative Director, Jay Gundzik, has produced a rich collection of stunning graphic designs over the past several seasons. “Rob (Gitelis, founder of Factor and Black Inc) wanted to have some very bold livery for it,” Jay explained.

“I looked at the design of the bike and worked with our engineers, just seeing the direction they were taking it, I was really excited about the design approach. The ALUTO is intended to be raced, but also designed for endurance, to be strong, and to withstand the demands of longer, more consistent gravel training and racing.”

Focusing on balancing speed with capability, the engineering behind the ALUTO has developed a bike that is not only fast in a straight line, but can handle rougher terrain, corner at speed and feel as agile negotiating singletrack as it does when accelerating on an open road. Jay’s design brief was to create the visual equivalent to the ALUTO’s ride feel.

Rally inspiration

“I started thinking about all those design and engineering attributes and tried to draw some type of parallel to something outside of cycling. I never like to look at what other bike brands are doing. I pull a lot of inspiration from automotive but also industrial design and graphic design. I’ve always been inspired by rally racing,” Jay said. “I love the idea that you are not only racing against yourself and other competitors’ times, but you are also racing against the environment. I started to think about what are the pinnacle events in the automotive world, and the Dakar Rally is perfect for that because it’s about endurance, it’s about skill, it’s about adventure, it’s about exploration, and navigation. It basically is the automotive equivalent to long distance gravel racing, which is what the ALUTO is designed for. Racing or just riding long distances, facing the elements.”

What makes the connection even stronger is that throughout its history, the automobiles and motorbikes that have raced Paris-Dakar, later known just as the Dakar Rally, also have valued bold visuals to complement the durability of their machines and skill of their drivers.

“I have followed the Dakar Rally for years, even going back to when it was still Paris-Dakar and I’ve always been inspired by the motor bikes and the jeeps,” Jay explained. “The early designs were so legendary. They are iconic with the colour-blocking. So I started to pull some of the most memorable and iconic designs from the Dakar Rally libraries that I could find and see whether I could translate that onto a bike.”

Taking further inspiration from more modern designs, Jay distilled those images into the two launch colours that will highlight the ALUTO and its off-road credentials. The Raptor Blue and Quattro Grey share antecedents in some of the more recent Dakar designs. “I started to look at something more modern. I found such a great library of designs, it was hard to narrow it down,” Jay explained.

“I feel like the modern-day equivalent exists in the Red Bull Ford Raptor. I wanted to do something with diagonal line inspiration. You can see in the striping, it’s definitely different, but it is a nod to that. And if you remember the OSTRO VAM geo stripe design from a few years ago, this is more of an evolution of that as well. It’s pretty beautiful. The colours are lovely.”

Standing alongside the Raptor Blue, the Quattro Grey reflects some of the design inspirations while remaining totally unique. “I found the Audi Quattro e-tron. It’s full electric for Dakar. It’s so cool,” Jay said. “When I saw this Audi, I loved the striping and the blocking and the almost digital camouflage effect and, of course, the Audi silver and black with that bold hit of red. I was just really inspired by it and thinking how can I do our version of this.”

Transferring from chassis to frames

The skill required to create the frame colour doesn’t end with the design. Deciding how to apply the colour features to a bike frame requires input and collaboration from several Factor production departments. “Trying to figure out how to get the frames painted efficiently can be complicated,” Jay confirmed. “So, I went through a few rounds with the factory team to get to where we have it today. Then I was really curious to see how it would look in the real-world environment.”

Once the ALUTO had received their full livery, Factor’s video production team raced to Iceland with Factor athlete, Jonas Lindberg, to get imagery and film on the volcanic island of Jonas riding the ALUTO in its Quattro Grey guise. “Luckily we were able to get it to Jonas, who was racing the Rift, and got to shoot the bikes in Iceland,” Jay explained. “Those pics look so wild there. It’s the environment plus the bike; it epitomizes the concept. I am really excited about it.”

An elevated ride

“The new ALUTO is elevated. It is built to have durability as well as speed,” Jay reiterated. “It’s important to have a nice cohesive design approach. People want to ride exciting bikes that represent their personalities. So having a bigger concept tied to the graphics helps them understand why the bike is designed that way but also makes it more desirable.”

At Factor we do things that aren’t just trendy and decorative. Above all, we are an engineering brand, and Creative Director, Jay Gundzik, sees his role in the design process as to help communicate a message that will amplify the brilliance of the engineering. “I try to communicate some type of message or overarching concept, while at the same time also honouring the engineering and design that goes into our bikes,” Jay said. “I always try to respect the work that they’ve done and offer a surface design that honours it but also accentuates it, somehow elevates it. That’s my spiel.”

Learn more about ALUTO

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