When a company, that's been manufacturing chrome parts for Harley Davidson for years, comes to you and says they want a catalog featuring their parts. I got a tingling rush to the brain that said, "Ohhh yeah. I've made it. Big time."

Then I could see the smile, but the cats body disappeared. It said, "Oh . . . By the way, we can't mention the HD word. And . . . we can't show HD motorcycles. No . . . there won't be any gorgeous models. By the way this is low budget job." Then the smile poofed away.

"What the F. Does anybody have a Marlboro? My long suppressed nicotine addition flared. I wanted to start smoking now!"

Okay, I thought about it. Anybody can do a Harley catalog, with models and beautiful bikes. But the real challenge is to make everyone think their looking at a Harley catalog, when they're really not. I decided to use smoke and mirrors.

If I polled one thousand Harley freaks on what their favorite color is, all one thousand would say black. Weird huh? Their second favorite color would be all over the place. So, I chose orange. It's only a coincident that Harley uses the same color. Hey, it's a free country. Orange goes good with black.

I have my smoke.

The cover illustration is vector art and a photograph of a front fender guard. The popular "V" dates way back to WWII. It means one thing to vets and another thing to Harley dudes. Nobody owns it. I illustrated a similar version of a high speed road tire. Found on Japanese bikes too. The generic fender and chrome shock stanchions are pretty much universal too. I worked the "Pro Chrome" name into the illustration.

I have my mirror.

Did I mention that there was no budget for a photographer? Chrome is extremely hard to photograph. A group of chrome parts is nearly impossible. Basically you need a giant, white, six sided tent. I improvised a white tent the best I could, but I was getting reflection off everything. I solved the problem once again by converting the photos to grayscale. I used my Nikon Coolpix 885, so I knew in minutes whether or not the shot would work. Any harsh reflections I digitally edited out.

Yes, this job worked out well. The digital camera and computer programing made it possible. Our industry worries me when clients look to the graphic business as a place to cut cost.

Corel Draw®
Nikon Coolpix 885®