20 years of kunstform: campaigns and posters

Over the last twenty years we have put out a lot of ad campaigns, magazine pages and posters, and we want to show you some of them here. One or two of the posters may even hang on your wall. Some of them had a theme that at first glance has little to do with BMX, and that was exactly the point: with every campaign we wanted to say something, and every year try something different. Not all of it is something we would do the same way today, but it is part of the story, and that is why we show it anyway. We go through the years in order, from 2008 to the team posters of today.

The oldest motifs we still have are from 2008, made for the BMX magazines: A good day is riding day, every letter a BMX part. Take a ride on the wild side. Talk to my hand, hater, we live it. And one for the Svevo bikes, hand built fixies from Stuttgart that were available only from us. Fixed gear was part of our range back then, because there was a good scene for it at the time and the BMX brands were offering singlespeed and fixed gear bikes too.

Then the drawn motifs: a wheel, a hand, eyes, glasses, hair, lips. The speech bubbles say what was new at the time: 24h shopping, the order hotline and the flagship store in Heilbronner Straße.

In 2010 the parts themselves were the subject. There were some really beautiful colours around, the Odyssey Twisted pedals in gold or chrome for instance, and we felt they were so good that we simply wanted to show them a bit more. So four posters: Tires, Stems, Pedals, Bars, one part each in every colour stacked on a white background, underneath in big letters what it is, and the address.

A year later came the series many customers still remember today: five motifs with bare skin, and a BMX part in front of each, grips, bars, chain, gloves or seat. They were printed in the BMX magazines. Seen from today the pictures no longer quite fit the times. When the series came out it was a huge success, and that kind of imagery was common back then.

The campaign with the line that stuck: Fuck it! Go & Ride! Two motifs, each in German and English, with a girlfriend who thinks opening cans is cooking and one who doesn't talk to you anymore. Underneath the addition "no matter why, no matter where, no matter when" and the whole list of brands. Nobody would write the lines about the girlfriend that way today, but the slogan itself made it onto a sticker: in 2013 the Fuck It sticker came out together with Wendel, free with every order.

The most elaborate campaign was the one with the x-rays. And they are real: every motif was actually x-rayed. There was exactly one artist in the world who could do what we wanted, and he sat in England. So we drove to England for it.

Five motifs came out of it: a complete BMX bike on a rail, a hub in cross section, a skeleton on the toilet, one in an explosive vest and a skull with a spanner in its head. With lines like "We care about details", "Choose friends wisely" and "Sapere aude", which means: dare to think for yourself. Nobody in BMX had done anything like it until then. We filmed how the pictures were made.

A year later, Hate? Love!, and the message is more relevant today than ever. With this series we deliberately wanted to dissolve boundaries and stir emotions, and put in one sentence: in the end it is about spreading love. And the logo, a heart with "Hate?" crossed out and "Love!" underneath. The logo says it all.

In 2015 we went out at night. The campaign was made with long exposures and LED light: the rider does his trick, the light on the bike draws the line into the air, and the camera keeps the shutter open until the whole movement is on the picture. What you see is the actual path the bike and the rider took.

You are looking at Miguel Smajli with a truckdriver and a 360, John Krämer with a megaspin and an upsidedown megaspin, and Miguel Franzem with a backflip and a flair. Photographed by Julien Fincker, it ran under #kfnightsessions.

Black and white, with exactly one colour left standing in each motif. Three pictures, shot by Tim Korbmacher: Sven Avemaria over a concrete bank with green grass, Robin Kachfi over a red object, and Miguel Smajli barspinning over magenta water steps.

The series with the other perspectives: from far away, from above, from below, the rider very small in a great deal of concrete, and only the small logo in the corner. Four motifs with Andre Bodlin, Miguel Smajli, Robin Kachfi and Sven Avemaria, photo art by Julien Fincker.

Colour, daylight, real places: a poster for everybody on the team, shot on the team trip to Nuremberg and at home in Stuttgart: Ricky Felchner, Miguel Smajli, Andre Bodlin, Sven Avemaria, Felix Donat and Felix Prangenberg, photographed by Merlin Czarnulla and Julien Fincker. The lettering and the address at the bottom, otherwise just the picture. The same motifs were cut into the online banners that year. The film from that trip is called Frankenland.

In autumn 2019 the team spent a week in Innsbruck, for the 20 Inch Trophy contest, for filming and for the shoot with Merlin Czarnulla. Out of it came the poster series with the round logo, each in a different colour: Robin Kachfi, Felix Donat, Felix Prangenberg, Justin Rudd, Sven Avemaria and Miguel Smajli. The posters came free with every order and in the shops in Stuttgart and Berlin. There is a video of that too, with the whole team.

For the 2023 poster series the spot was our own shop. The riders ride right there: Felix Prangenberg over the counter in Stuttgart, Justin Rudd jumps over the rim rack, Miguel Smajli over the BMX boxes in the stockroom, Elias Bauer and Erik Herschke in the shop and the stockroom in Berlin. Andreas Schwarzkopf shot in Stuttgart, Sascha Grünthal in Berlin. Both addresses are printed at the bottom of every poster. That was the idea: the shop is a place where people ride.

In 2024 the team went to Copenhagen, and out of it came seven single motifs, one for each: Erik Herschke, Flo Först, Jan Bisanz, Justin Rudd, Konstantin Rudobashta, Miguel Smajli and Noah Martella. Athanasios Parlapanis shot all of them, in the same look, with a white border and the logo bottom left, so that side by side they read as one series. The film from that trip is called Kopenschaden. You can buy the posters from us, in DIN A1 and DIN A2.

What else happened across twenty years is told by Seppl, Fuhre, Flo and the others themselves in our documentary for the 20th anniversary.

All the best & Ride on
Your kunstform BMX Shop Team