How BMW Motorrad transformed its brand

When BMW was founded as Bayerische Motoren Werke in 1916, the company began by manufacturing aircraft engines – the origin of the iconic propeller in its logo. What many people don’t know (except true BMW enthusiasts, of course) is that BMW didn’t start producing cars until 1928.

Five years earlier, in 1923, BMW had already introduced its first motorcycles. In other words, the two-wheeler has been part of BMW’s story longer than the car.

Today, BMW Motorrad stands as the only remaining German motorcycle brand, recognised and admired around the world. With more than 210,000 bikes sold globally, the brand has just celebrated its best year ever. This success is no coincidence; BMW Motorrad has been steadily expanding for years.

From product to brand, from brand design to experience design

Since 2020, BMW Motorrad has been working with Mutabor as its CI/CD lead agency. The joint mission: to consistently develop the brand’s presence across all touchpoints and bring the defined brand strategy to life.

There has been (and still is) plenty to do: BMW Motorrad aims to evolve from a product brand into an experience brand. The brand’s promise: 'Make life a ride'.

It doesn’t have to look the same – it has to feel the same

The biggest challenge in projects like this is not just ensuring visual consistency across assets, but above all conveying the right feeling – the right experience – at every touchpoint.

Essential to this is the maximum clarity and distinctiveness of the brand elements. They create recognition while allowing great flexibility in application. Together with BMW Motorrad, Mutabor continuously works on further developing these elements. Over the years, this has resulted in a set of iconic design fundamentals ranging from typography and icons to distinctive imagery and more.

Comprehensive brand guidelines put this into practice, following one central principle: not everything has to look the same, it just has to feel the same. That’s the essence of a true experience brand.

And there were many guidelines to develop: Corporate Identity, Motion Guidelines, Event Guidelines, Retail, Packaging, Iconography, and more. With an interdisciplinary team of strategists and designers, the complex architecture of offerings was translated into clear design principles.

The result is a comprehensive, flexible design system that enables intelligent brand management, covering everything from community insight and design frameworks to communication and global digital scaling. Mutabor calls this 'brand intelligence'.

Lighting the spark – brand experience from the inside out

Particular focus is placed on touchpoints that offer a strong brand experience, and these can now be found right within the company itself. To communicate the internal strategy, a dedicated Brand Room was created: an edutainment space that makes the brand’s values and experiential dimensions tangible, both physically and digitally.

At its centre is an impressive installation: the Fireplace. Additionally, independent identities and guidelines have been developed for various community formats, including the BMW Motorrad Enduro Park and BMW Motorrad Days.

Creating spaces that make life a ride

The dealer network, for sure, plays an essential role. An all-new retail brand experience design has been developed for global rollout, covering everything from furniture to communication.

The new retail design creates a unique atmosphere that is both warm and powerful, shaped by the Fireplace as its central element. At BMW Motorrad, retail is much more than a traditional showroom: it serves as the central meeting point for the community, as event space, as starting point for rides, and as a place for connection.

In this open and welcoming environment, fans of the brand (and those who aspire to become them) can experience the world of BMW Motorrad in an authentic way: approachable, inspiring, and full of passion for the shared spirit of life on two wheels.

This feeling is best experienced at the newly opened BMW Motorrad Welt in Berlin. In the historic factory at the brand’s long-standing production headquarter, Mutabor has created an experience centre covering more than 1,000 square meters. That wasn’t all, either. To celebrate the brand’s 100th anniversary, the designers had the honour of creating a major exhibition at the BMW Museum in Munich.

The ride continues

After five years, the century-old brand has become more attractive and tangible than ever before. This success is the result not only of long-term projects for the brand’s continuous development, but also of fast, global design support that relies on a well-coordinated and flexible team on both the client and agency sides, and above all, genuine passion.

Over time, a true partnership has grown between BMW Motorrad and Mutabor, now continuing into its next chapter with the recently extended collaboration.