June 19, 2014
5 Artists/5 Helmets/1 Bike

Oregon Manifest is a nonprofit with the goal of creating the ultimate urban bicycle. ARTCRANK is a traveling poster show dedicated to making art and bikes equally accessible. So what do you get when you get Oregon Manifest and ARTCRANK together with Nutcase helmets?

Helmets as art.

Five ARTCRANK artists in the cities of Chicago, New York, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle were chosen to represent their city with hand-painted helmets to capture their own hometown bicycle cultures. The five artists all used a Nutcase helmet as their canvas.

Today debuts the first helmet in the five-helmet series, by Portland artist Brad Simon. As befits an artist from Nutcase’s home base, Simon’s design for helmet art is playful, a little wacky, and with just a hint of rain – like Portland.

“It’s exciting to have ARTCRANK as partner for this year’s competition,” said Shannon Holt, Oregon Manifest co-founder. “This is an opportunity that will not only unite artists with the bicycle community, but will aid the organizations working to make cycling safer and empowering.”

Oregon Manifest will reveal the bike designs for this year’s competition on July 28.  Every week leading up to that date a new artist-designed helmet will debut. To take a look at the video for how Simon designed the Portland helmet, check here.

Simon’s helmet and the remaining four will be auctioned off to benefit bike advocacy organizations in the five cities, including the Community Cycling Center in Portland, Transportation Alternatives in New York, and Pedal Revolution in San Francisco.