Rob Williams
Willco / Independent workSerial 1 / Electric bicycles

Give the brand
somewhere to go.

Serial 1 began inside Harley-Davidson, then entered a crowded e-bike market. Its heritage was a starting point. The company needed a direction of its own, shared by the brand and the bike.

Through Willco, I worked across brand strategy, identity, communication and product design to answer a larger question: what should Serial 1 become next?

Unproduced brand and product direction.

Rob Williams / Brand strategy & product design

Serial 1 / Campaign application study.

Brand direction

We explored three possible futures for Serial 1. Each brought together an identity, an audience and a different view of the product. Comparing them made the choice about the company’s direction tangible.

The answer became Ride Wide Open: a celebration of bike culture and freedom. The Limit Pusher gave that idea a character—relaxed swagger, skill and the determination to follow your own path. That attitude carried into the identity, language and campaign concepts.

Brand communication / Billboard concept
Brand strategy / Three possible directions
Ride Wide Open / Bike culture and freedom
Brand character / Rider and attitude studies
The Limit Pusher / Brand character
Ride Wide Open / Mural concept
Brand communication / Billboard concept

Product futures

Ride Wide Open carried the brand direction into the bike itself. We explored frame proportions, stance, material expression and color, testing how a more adventurous Serial 1 could take shape.

Three design themes led to the blue bicycle concept shown here. The proposed campaign carried that direction into the outdoors with Ride the Great Unpaved. We were designing the next Serial 1 when the company changed hands; the bikes and campaign remained proposals.

Selected product direction / Blue bicycle concept
Product exploration / Three frame and design themes
Selected product direction / Blue bicycle concept
Ride the Great Unpaved / Portfolio visualization of the unproduced proposal

Project context

We brought positioning, identity, communication and product concepts together around Ride Wide Open. Serial 1 was acquired in November 2023 before the work launched, so these remained unproduced proposals.

Brand strategy and product design / Rob Williams with collaborators, through Willco Design. Unproduced proposals; the company changed ownership before launch.

Serial 1 / My role

Find the direction. Then design around it.

I was brought in across brand strategy, identity, communication and product design. With collaborators through Willco, I explored three possible futures for Serial 1 before developing the Ride Wide Open direction.

The work extended from brand character and identity into frame studies, product concepts and campaign applications. The product images are concept renderings, and the campaign applications are studies.

Serial 1 was acquired in November 2023 before the work launched. The proposals remained unproduced; the work did not cause the acquisition.

Serial 1 / The story

Ride Wide Open.

The three directions combined identity, audience and product. We considered what each would ask of the business, then developed Ride Wide Open as a freer point of view on bike culture.

The Limit Pusher made the direction human. Skill, swagger, self-direction and a willingness to ignore the expected way of doing things gave the work a specific character. Serial 1’s partnership with trials rider Vittorio Brumotti as a global brand ambassador offered a reference for that behavior.

The mural and billboard studies explored how the identity and character could appear in public. They are unproduced application studies, rather than documentation of a launched campaign.

Serial 1 / The story

Let the bike carry the idea.

The product work developed alongside the brand. Frame studies compared three design themes before we developed the selected blue bicycle through side and three-quarter renderings.

Proportion, material expression and color were parts of the same decision. The aim was to give the brand’s invitation to explore a physical expression in the bike.

Ride the Great Unpaved is a portfolio visualization of that unproduced brand and product direction. The bicycles shown are concept renderings, not manufactured products.