Core77

There's a lot of bike love here on Core (here, here, here, and here, for example), both on the part of our readers and some of our bloggers too, and why not? The bicycle is one of the world's great examples of good design: utilitarian, refined, efficient and available in mind-blowing variety, from the $60 K-mart kid's bike to to the $6000 carbon fiber road demon, and everything in between. It also offers plenty of opportunity for individual craftsmanship too, especially in the realm of handmade frames, as featured in the Core77 gallery on the North American Handmade Bicycle Show earlier this year.

As luck would have it, the exhibitor that took the Best New Builder prize at that show is closer to the design world than we thought: his name's Aaron Hayes, and he's an industrial designer. Formerly with Ziba, he is now the founder of Courage Bicycle Manufacturing, a custom bike builder in Portland, Oregon.

Over at Coroflot's Creative Seeds blog, Carl Alviani caught up with Aaron over email last week to ask him a little bit about making the transition from the studio to the workshop, and how his background in ID has helped. And what he misses too:

Is there anything you miss about consultancy or freelance ID work?

I miss always being surprised by the ingenuity and insights from my peers. It can get a little lonely working by yourself day after day, and it's easy to start second guessing things when everything goes through one filter. I also miss the comfort of a direct deposit paycheck...

For any designer who's given some long hard thought to switching careers to something more hands-on, it's worth a read.

>>Read the whole interview here<<

Photo: David Regen