Behind the scenes at top helmet design company Rich-Art
How a motocross accident kick-started the career of one of Britain’s best helmet painters…
In a leafy suburb of Sutton Coldfield, in a converted garage complete with venting systems, and stocked with boxes of brand new Arais, lies one of Britain’s most respected helmet painters. Rich-Art is the trading name of Richard Stevens, whose work has been seen on the heads of Troy Bayliss, Neil Hodgson, Cal Crutchlow and most recently Josh Brookes, but it all began, quite literally, by accident.
In the late ’90s, Rich was a national-level MX racer before a broken leg changed everything. Laid up with time to fill, an interest in custom helmets and a connection to then BSB-contender Troy Bayliss, life took a major turn. “I’d always been fascinated by helmet designs, Troy Lee and so on, and it seemed like a cool job to do,” Rich tells MCN. “When the accident happened, my hand was forced, but only as a stop-gap. My suspension tech, (Ken Somerton from K-Tech) was Troy Bayliss’s, too and he put us together. I designed and painted his helmet for the last two rounds.” And the rest, as they say, is history. Bayliss led to Hodgson, then Crutchlow, a relationship with Arai developed and the ‘stopgap’ became a successful full-time career. Along the way, although never formally trained, Rich has been guided and mentored by the likes of MX painter Miles Carter and Andi Beazley (of Splat Design), he’s honed and refined his technique with meticulous research and today he’s renowned as one of the very best in the business, producing around 100 designs a year.
And, considering the quality of Rich’s work, it’s not hard to see why. Designs are all one-offs, painted by hand; paint and materials are the very best, usually sourced from the USA.Rich added: “I spend £600 a
month on paint. More on lacquer.” The usual turnaround time is 4-5 weeks (although he can do a racer replacement in three or four days in an emergency) with customers now split 50:50 between cars and bikes. Even so, he has no plans to expand. “In all honesty I don’t want to. For me private customers are where it’s at and I won’t cut corners. Yes, I’m restricting myself financially and it’s never going to make me a millionaire. But instead I like to concentrate on more specialist jobs. And when you make a product that the customer is happy with, that’s the satisfaction for me.”