Manifest Digital Taps Design and Motorcycle Enthusiasts to Rally Around Kickstarter Campaign

by Bruce Montgomery
September 25, 2012

 

Manifest Digital Taps Design and Motorcycle Enthusiasts to Rally Around Kickstarter Campaign

Campaign Aims to Raise $500,000 to Document Renowned Motorcycle Designer, JT Nesbitt, Revolutionize Craftsmanship and Revamp Process of Design

CHICAGO - (www.twitter.com/TechAccessTV) - Manifest Digital, a Chicago-based interactive design agency, and its founding partner, Jim Jacoby, announced today a crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter.com (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bienvillelegacy/the-bienville-legacy-motorcycles-of-power-and-dist/?ref=kicktraq). Its goal is to inspire a new standard for master craftsmanship in our digital economy. The campaign funding runs from September 22 through October 22 to raise $500,000 to support a true master craftsman, motorcycle designer JT Nesbitt.

 

Today’s corporate mantra, to “get it done cheaper and faster” hinders the pursuit of true craftsmanship, which Jacoby is seeking to re-establish in conversations in and about business. Meanwhile, consumers have proven that they will reward brilliantly designed products with record sales. The question becomes, can we master-craft digital experiences and, if so, where should we be gaining these insights?

“There are extremely talented craftsman out there toiling away in obscurity because people don’t appreciate craftsmanship like they used to,” said Jim Jacoby, founder and president of Manifest Digital. “We expect this project to establish an undeniable legacy for JT Nesbitt, and put a sustainable foundation in motion to seek additional industry master craftsmen in the coming years… beginning in the traditional arts, but ultimately transitioning to integrated digital experiences.”

The Kickstarter.com campaign at its core supports master craftsman JT Nesbitt, who is well known among motorcycle aficionados for his role with breakthrough motorcycle designs like the G2 Hellcat and Confederate Wraith. The campaign will go further, though, to encourage a connection between the motorcycles created and digital design communities. The outcome will be three, never-before-seen prototype motorcycles developed in his hometown of New Orleans.

Contributors to the Kickstarter.com campaign will receive rewards ranging from premier-screening tickets to a documentary capturing Nesbitt’s designs and Jacoby’s goals, an externship with Nesbitt to directly learn from him during the design and build process, all the way through a trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to watch Jacoby break three land speed world records on Nesbitt’s bikes.

“Jim is passionate about optimizing craftsmanship excellence, which has been inhibited by the pressures of today’s competitive economy,” said JT Nesbitt, owner of Bienville Studios in New Orleans. “Our goal is to re-invigorate the design process and take on something as audacious as a landspeed record to prove sensational engineering and innovative business methods produce results. I’m ready to establish this design legacy."

As part of this initiative, Jacoby is separately founding a non-profit called the American Design and Master-Craft Initiative (ADMCi) focused on the curation and promotion of master-craftsmanship across major industries in the U.S. More on the initiative can be found at www.ADMCi.org.

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