Ben Miles

A custom chrome emblem for a Corvette enthusiast’s project car.

The late Bill Mays, one-time owner and co-founder of the telecom equipment provider Call One Inc., had a love for classic cars and rebuilding them. That passion culminated in a one-of-a-kind project car, built from various new and reconditioned parts, roughly following the design of the 1957 Fuel Injected Corvette Convertible, and was affectionately dubbed Kinda (as in, “it’s kinda a Corvette…”).

Having worked with Bill on several print projects for Call One, he entrusted me to complete a few finishing touches to Kinda, including the crown-jewel: a set of custom chrome emblems. I worked closely with Bill on every step, from choosing a typeface, to prototyping the emblem in clay, to choosing a 3D scanner and printer to make duplicates of the clay model in ABS plastic, and even a metal-plating shop to chrome-plate the finished pieces.

This was a truly unique project, and one that I was honored to have been chosen to help out with.