OK, the headline is a bit misleading. The bike is not for sale or anything, but it jumped out at me as I thumbed through the latest Design Within Reach catalog (this image is a full page in the print catalog, so the bike is a bit easier to see). As a designer of home décor products, I regularly look through different shelter magazines and furniture catalogs. In the last few years, I have noticed that bikes are increasingly being used as props in application shots like this one. In this case, the product being sold is a dining room table. We all know that most people don’t typically store bikes in the dining room, so why did they choose to place a bicycle in this shot? That’s easy, the answer is because bikes are cool. The presence of the bike conjures up the image of a person who is active and lives a healthy lifestyle. You can imagine that the bike in this shot is probably used by a young, hip urban dweller for getting around on crowed city streets. When not in use, the bike takes a prominent place in the crowded apartment, even becoming a part of the decor. However you choose to interpret this catalog shot, one thing is for sure; the bicycle, the cereal, the laptop, the oversized paper pendants, the Mondrian style room divider, and all the other accessories in the picture are designed to paint a picture of a fictitious consumer who might choose to own this particular dining set. I think that is pretty cool. I like to see manufacturers and retailers outside of the bicycle industry using bikes to sell their products. As that practice become more common, are any of you bike industry marketing people taking advantage of these product placement opportunities?
Speaking of DWR, they do sell a few bike products for kids. The LikeABike has been in the catalog for a while. New are the Pilot trikes and scooter from Italtrike. Neat products, but they don’t come cheap. My kids will have to just stick with the old fashioned red tricycle that I picked up at the thrift store many years ago.
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