Coloured vehicles enable adventurous livery designs. Elite Signs and Graphics demonstrates…

White vans and multi-mission light commercial vehicles could have claimed a position on the roads of the UK nearing ubiquity at one time, but that absolute dominance is today yielding. 

Many white vehicles out there are now hidden beneath a protective layer of coloured material that obscures the white paint, replacing it with something that differentiates it from others of the same breed, and bringing a splash of colour to the discussion. Colour-change wraps are growing in popularity it seems. 

Then there’s the advancing legions of otherwise white vehicles whose owners and operators turn into rolling billboards that advertise products and services using impactful wraps. Livery used as a branding continuation turns otherwise anonymous white vehicles into durable and very conspicuous statements of presence using the same wrapping techniques and materials.

Another rising star, challenging white vehicles’ numbers, is the apparently growing number that are delivered straight off the line wearing paint of another colour. Someone somewhere made the decision to challenge a deeply entrenched convention, and it has done well. ‘White-Van-Man’ may himself need to think of rebranding when the likelihood of finding himself behind the wheel of something silver, or gunmetal-grey, or red is probably on the rise.

Elite Signs and Graphics, Bridgend based but operating further afield too, sees enough vehicles in the course of its working week for the team there, headed by Simon James, to notice hints toward trends. These days, the team welcomes quite a few coloured vehicles onto its forecourt and discussions ensue.

Among the most recent to make the trip to Elite Signs and Graphics was a representative of a small fleet operated by Elite’s client, Site Guardian Security. Security vehicles are commonly quite restrained when it comes to branding and livery but the design that Elite proposed, and that Site Guardian’s owners enthusiastically approved, takes things to the opposite extreme and looks brilliant as a result.

The design is an impactful and energetically sent signal that Elite has some high-octane designers among its team. The ‘impression-value’ the livery delivers is very high because the colourways used, and the bold geometry imprint themselves and claim a bit of ground that really distinguishes the work from the clutter the vehicle will find around it as it operates.

The livery makes the body colour of the vehicle part of the design itself and, in so doing, simplifies the application challenges that a total coverage wrap would present, while still looking like a full wrap. In Simon James’s words, “We can make the economics more attractive for ourselves and for our customers by approaching design, production and application in a way that strategically reveals the [vehicle] base colour. It’s almost like a firebreak without compromising the continuity of the design. We get to an edge, finished the application at that point and then move on to the next part. It’s really satisfying at the end to step back and see the parts resolved as a whole.”

Site Guardian’s owners are in total agreement. The vehicles make a potent statement wherever they operate and make security and its presence conspicuous. There may be an argument to be made that, with a livery that advertises itself so obviously, collateral security benefits businesses around the focus-site which have no relationship with Site Guardian themselves.

Metamark’s role in Elite’s triumph was supplying the company with the MetaCast® MDC premium cast wrapping film it used to do the job. Elite rightly prides itself on the quality and fidelity of the print it delivers, and the company is always invested in the best hardware it can find. MDC, part of Metamark’s MD-Class digital materials portfolio, delivers optimal results with modern hardware and ink species thanks in no small part to its appetite for ink. Even heavy loads resolve well and dry readily, and the mechanical properties of the material mean easier application.

Elite’s specialisation will see a continuing flow of vehicles arriving for livery work and its design and quality that work hand in hand to distinguish the company’s output. As an exponent of vehicle graphics, the rise of the coloured light commercial doesn’t challenge Elite, far from it. Again, in Simon James’s words, “It’s brighter than white.”