July 17, 2020

When your business is predicated on the whole notion of making people look the very best they can, your vehicle and its livery and better live up to the ideal too…

Formal Hire is a business that does pretty much what it says on the tin and that’s based in Swansea. Despite trading behind a notion promoting ‘quality over quantity,’ the company is based in a very impressive double aspect showroom, purpose built in 2015. It straddles a couple of stories and it offers anyone who comes to it looking for garments to hire a choice from the 10,000 plus that it keeps in its stock. Whether you’re a two year old or you need to cover a sixty inch chest, Formal Wear has what you need. It even has Welsh and Scottish tartans.

The business has been doing its thing since the late 90s and has expanded very steadily thanks to the depth to which it focusses on its offering and the power of the reputation it’s created. Its service extends to home fitting sessions and deliveries. For that, the business needs, and has, a van. Like the people it turns out, Formal Wear’s van is a smart one. They wanted to make it a bit smarter still and so got in touch with another company that has a towering reputation in its own field - Elite Signs and Graphics, based just to the east in Bridgend.

Simon James and the Elite Signs and Graphics team are hugely experienced in the design and provision of high-end vehicle liveries. The company’s work gets followed and drivers whose vehicles wear its liveries are asked ‘who did that for you.’ The company is notable for taking livery design out of the realms of the wholly familiar and expected and carves its own furrow by delivering vehicle livery that’s imaginative, distinctive and above all effective. Formal Wear’s brief to Elite gave the company freedom to explore the fringes of its craft.

What’s resulted, amounts to a catalogue cover or billboard on wheels. It propels and promotes Formal Wear’s brand and illustrates its wares too. Recognising that only one side of a vehicle is visible at any time, the livery is distinctly different on each of the van’s flanks. It’s dominated by very expertly printed graphics in dark hues. Underneath the van’s new clothes is a silver vehicle that’s had the previous livery removed.

The Formal Wear van was a first for Elite Signs and Graphics. The company has been using Metamark Materials for years but this job marked the debut of Metamark’s new Premium Cast Wrapping Film, MetaCast MDC - and its matched laminate - MGC.

The print quality isn’t just typical Elite Signs and Graphics, it’s typical MD-Class digital media quality too. Put another way, it’s flawless. The applied result hugs every recess and curve and stands the closest examination. The new film also got a very vivid testimonial from the fitting team. It was said that, when applying the MetaCast MDC, its was as though, ‘…it had magic water underneath it.’ The 1.6M width was pronounced helpful too.

Metamark couldn’t have put it better. What’s being subject to the praise from this deeply experienced team is the product’s new MetaGlide Adhesive. The adhesive is a performance targeted formulation that supports effortless repositioning and which builds to a very powerful ultimate bond. Despite that, when the livery is eventually removed, all that will remain is a memory of how good it looked - not a trace of adhesive will be left behind.

Elite Signs and Graphics knows a thing or two about wrapping and livery design. The company is discerning enough to know when it has its hands on a good thing in material terms. MDC is just that. This leading edge cast film in tandem with the skills and expertise under Elite Signs’ roof is going to yield some truly memorable results. We can’t wait to share them.