Let’s Talk Shop
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Better fleet design
We are bombarded by “brands” every day. The good ones grab our
attention and become memorable. When a customer first comes to us for
logo design, we often recommend they walk the aisles of their local
grocery store and simply pay attention to logos, packaging colors and
fonts.
Doing this helps them form opinions about what they like and don’t
like. It also helps them understand what works and what doesn’t.
The customer’s original logo
was given an updated look, while still incorporating his original
windmill design. The design elements can be modified as needed for his
new trucks, while still maintaining a consistent overall brand.
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Whether a customer has a fleet of vehicles ready to letter, plans to
continually add to their fleet or even wants to make their one vehicle
look like it belongs to a fleet, good design starts from the beginning.
The design should easily translate to multiple types of vehicle and
background colors.
Branding should also clearly convey the company’s product or service.
It should be relevant to their industry and it should be easy to read on
a moving vehicle.
This fleet of vehicles
incorporates three different companies into one related design. An
updated logo and consistent design elements tie the fleet together.
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Fleet graphics can range from simple door lettering to full wraps, and
everything in between. Every customer will have some idea of what
they’re willing to spend on their graphics. Often it takes presenting a
few size vs. price options to find the coverage that will meet their
budget.
If a particular vehicle within their fleet is on the road more often or
visits heavily populated areas, then larger graphics may be considered
for that vehicle, while smaller spot graphics are used on other vehicles
in the fleet. Review the list of vehicles in the customer’s fleet, find
out if they plan to do them all at once, determine a budget and then
work with the customer to determine coverage.
Consistency
A fleet that we are currently working on involves many different types
of vehicles and three separate but related companies. This customer
wanted to update his previous company logo, freshen up the colors and
incorporate a uniform look.
We’ve installed partial wraps on sales pickups, utility trucks, a crane
utility truck, a semi-truck tanker and we’re currently working on
replacing the graphics on his fleet of small tanker trucks. The core
logo needed to be maintained on all the vehicles.
One of three full wraps, the
bright green background on these trucks definitely grabs attention. The
orange and black on the logo and minimal text pops against the
background making for an effective and bold design.
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The larger windmill, clean color scheme and larger “Propane” on the new
design gave the company logo a fresher feel. Consistent placement of
the logo elements and use of a background design tied together all three
different companies, within one basic overall design.
Big & Bold
One of our first customers was a fleet account for a local winery.
These box trucks have been wrapped and re-wrapped a few times over the
years. Sometimes we’re given artwork or some ideas of what the customer
wants, but we’ve also been simply given a wine that they want to feature
and we get to come up with the design.
This customer understands the importance of bright, bold images and
maximum coverage on their rolling billboards. We try to capture the
spirit of the wine by incorporating the design elements used on the wine
label and other advertising.
Two color, cut vinyl
lettering has been the way we’ve lettered many vehicles over the years
for a local carpet cleaning company. For their newest van we offered
them a new design option, incorporating the same basic design as the
rest of their fleet, but with a bigger background element and a little
more color.
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Grow With The Customer
Years ago we created a simple logo for a local carpet cleaning
business. Before we bought our first large-format printer, everything
was designed to be cut in vinyl. This wasn’t always a bad thing.
Full color printing is a great tool for any sign company, but don’t be
afraid to stick with bold, single colors when it works. For our carpet
cleaning customer, we continued with his simple scheme, but added a
little more color to the design, went a little bigger with the logo and
added a large background design.
The newest van incorporates all the same elements as the original van
graphics we did, but the increased size makes a bigger impact. As this
customer continues to grow his business, we’ve shown him that we can
grow alongside him to continue to meet his needs in even more creative
and effective ways.
Simple vector artwork,
printed and contour cut, can be scaled to work on multiple vehicle
types. These graphics are easy to read and convey the customer’s service
clearly.
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The first year it was the salesperson and her dog, the next year it was
her and her son and the latest truck featured the son. The background
design grew with the company, achieving the “family” feel he desired.
The company logo, colors and contact information remained prominent in
the design as well, creating an overall effective design.
A few years ago we created a simple full color design for a local
plumber. The contour cut graphics, clean layout and concise content have
translated well to multiple vans and pickups as the customer has grown
his business. These spot graphics are all vector based and can be scaled
to any size.
The owners of the propane company also own a portable toilet business.
This company also had a pre-existing logo that needed some updating. We
chose a bold, edgier design while maintaining his existing colors.
The graphics were printed and contour cut and sized to fit the large
doors of his truck. The next vehicle he’s bringing in has completely
different doors, but by designing the graphics with this in mind, we’re
able to easily move elements around to fit, while still maintaining the
overall look of his new logo.
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