Spring cleaning - Niner edition

Clearing space on my hard drive, I came across a folder dated 2009 from the first bike I helped design with Niner, the Jet 9 Carbon. It was Niner's first carbon rig and I was thrilled for the opportunity to help develop the frame.

Ideating on linkages, I'd created dozens of digital sketches for the primary link. Just for kicks I wondered what such sketches would look like run through Vizcom, so I did so today.

How might the project have gone differently with such tools?

Visually, I suppose the presentations might have looked more polished. Although, AI tends to add plenty of glitches I'd have surely spent time cleaning up in post. Logos get mangled; I'd have spent time creating those separately.

Would the designs themselves be enhanced in any way? Hard to say. Sometimes AI misinterprets a sketch, creating a protrusion where a recess was intended, for example. While usually irritating, every once in a while it offers a perspective I hadn't considered that may actually be interesting. Nothing jumped out in this case, but it's happened enough for me to consider that a feature, not a bug.

Would it have saved time? Well, I tend to dive so deep into this stuff that any time saved on the front end, I'd have added in the back, tweaking the results late into the night anyway. Impact on sleep, probably negligible.

A fun exercise, regardless. As I continue spring cleaning I may see what other past work might be fun to run through. 

Interesting times.

Thanks to Niner founders Chris Sugai and Steve Domahidy for what turned out to be a long-term collaboration creating some truly groundbreaking bikes!