While the name Guillaume Tanghe probably won't be one you are familiar with, the chances are you will be familiar with his work. I wasn't when I first met him some five years ago. He had come to Molini di Triora and I was his guide on the sprawling ancient trails of the Ligurian mountains. It was only at the end of the day when we were sitting over cold, post-ride beers that he mentioned that he did something with design and bicycles. Modestly he slipped his phone from his pocket and showed a couple of his pieces. Graphic designs tends to be something we don't think about too much in our sport. Yet looking through Guillaume's designs it hits home how big an impact his designs have had over the years. For me it is the Peaty caricature with the crown atop his head, Union Jack across his chest, holding up a tankard of beer. That was certainly one of the iconic images of mountain biking from my childhood and the chances are there is at least one image in his portfolio that that will ring the bells of nostalgia for you. Whether it is Vouilloz, Palmer or Schurter, or maybe the stars of more mainstream sports like Jean Alesi, Ricky Carmichael or James "Bubba" Stewart. Then there are the bikes and components too, the Lapierre world cup team, the early 2000s Scott Gamblers and many of the Shimano PRO components. Through the years his designs have made their mark on how we view athletes, bikes and brands, yet outside inner circles of the industry few people have ever even heard his name. When people dream about working in the bike industry it is usually as riders, engineers and product managers - graphic design is not a path many people either know about or consider. We caught up with Guillaume to find out how he made his path through the industry over the years and what it means to be a graphic designer in the mountain bike industry.




Can you explain what your job is?

I am a French freelance graphic designer, I have been doing this professionally since 1990. I work in mountain bike, motocross, BMX, skiing and car racing - basically anything that involves racing! I worked a lot in Formula 1 and the ski industry, I designed shapes, cartoon logos, graphics, racing and casual clothing, a bunch of different things really. Today I am now mostly focused on the mountain bike industry though as it is what I love the most. Since 1998 I have worked for a whole bunch of different companies, like Alpinestars, Shimano, Diamondback, Scott, TLD, Salomon, Mavic and Lapierre just to name a few.

How did you get into doing this?

I started as an illustrator/cartoonist in advertising agencies in the North of France right after I left art school in 1987, learned a lot there, but it wasn't 100% what I wanted to do. I have always loved to draw and create since I was a kid, it was interesting but being a racer myself I'd rather work for customers that suit my passion. At the time I was racing and riding BMX, in fact I have ridden BMX for more than 20 years now. These days I mostly ride enduro and DH though. In my early work I was lucky, my boss let me park my BMX at my desk! I was doing things like animating a cartoon plumber for a plumbing catalogue or drawing a cartoon beaver for work disruptions to a subway line. It was fun, it was good work, but it wasn't right for me. It was a big risk for me, but I decided to go freelance and focus my work on the things that I loved. I started by building a portfolio with all my best stuff and went to all the motorcycle and bicycle shows and expos I could go to. Being shy didn't help but as I was now freelance the motivation was strong for me and I tried to meet as many people as possible from the industry. In the early days a few companies took a chance on me, Troy Lee Designs and Alpinestars were some of the first to take a chance on me - I did some test work for them and it all started from there. In 1997 I met a guy called Xavier Redois, he is a French BMX legend and at the time was the manager of Diamondback bikes who were based in the UK back then. He asked me to make all their mountain bike graphics that year. That was the point where I really committed to working with mountain bikes. As I progressed I was lucky enough to work with big companies, like Shimano, Scott, Mavic and Lapierre. It's been 20 years now working in the sport I love, the biggest thing that has changed is that I now work with people I have never even met on the other side of the globe thanks to the magic of emails and the internet. All this from my home in Southern France where I am surrounded by some of the best enduro trails anywhere in the world!



To be precise, what do you produce?

Basically anything from frame or helmet shape designs, bike graphics to mountain bike gear or rider cartoon logos. Over my 20 years I have designed pretty much everything you could think of! Recently I have been working a lot on frame shapes and graphics. Technically speaking frame graphics are really hard to work on, you are really heavily restricted by the shapes, so it's a challenge to make something new every season, but it keeps it interesting for me. Consumers probably never really realize how much of a struggle it is to create and apply their frame graphics. Every single decal needs to be applied by hand and, if you look at your bike closely, most have a handmade paint mask - so you are basically getting a custom paint job on your bike. Back in 2000 we discovered this when I was working for Scott, and I think it was one of the first times this was ever done on a production frame. Nowadays it is on almost all the high end frames you seen and it means your frame is unique.

Some of your designs can be considered fairly iconic, but many people many not have heard of you until now - was this a conscious choice on your part to stay behind the scenes?

If I'm honest this was on purpose... I'm not really the kind of guy who likes to show off, or maybe I'm just too shy for that, haha. As a freelancer this probably hasn't helped me as you need to market yourself, but it's how I am. When I show people my portfolio they tend to look at me in surprise that they have never heard of me before because they recognize a lot of my work. That said, I guess I am lucky because even though I have never really marketed myself I have done well over the years, most of the time my customers come to me through my professional connections. The bicycle industry is a small world, so if you get a reputation for doing good work then people hear about you. Also, I never sign my own work, you never see my name on the finished product, just the name of the company I designed it for.

Do you have any professional qualifications or is it all down to natural talent?
The funny thing is that, even though I was sketching all over the place... I was always a lot more about skulls and flames than fruits and landscapes, if you see what I mean... But I didn't think it was possible to make a living out of it. Since I loved working as mechanic too, I signed up in a school to train to be one like my dad was. It was my dad who told me I should try and enter a contest to enter ESAAT though. it is a really good art school in North of France but quite hard to qualify to get in, but he wanted me to at least try. If I failed, I could still enter the mechanic school any time. As it turned out I was successful and I went on to graduate there. After I started studying for a Masters degree in art, but I never completed the course because an advertising agency offered me a great job and I couldn't say no to them.



If you had to pick one piece of work from your portfolio as a favourite, what would it be and why?

That's a hard one... Only one?... I would say the Piston Bones I did for TLD back in 1992 because it really represents my style.

What would be your advice to some considering graphics in mountain biking as a career?

Go to an Art School to learn the basics and build a portfolio related to mountain biking. Unless you have an exceptional natural talent you need to learn how to draw properly. There are too many guys these days who are computer geniuses, but if you put a pen and paper in front of them, nothing! In some ways I was lucky that I studied in art school at a time before computers were common - we had one for the whole school and if you were lucky you could draw a circle in half an hour, ha ha. Computers are, of course, a huge help, but without creativity and talent they are just fancy typewriters. It helps if you are rider and love what you do, but that's usually the easy part!

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Visit the high-res gallery for more images from Guillaume's portfolio.

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MENTIONS: @troyleedesigns / @AlpinestarsMTB / @shimano / @Lapierre-Bikes / @mattwragg

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