January 26, 2021 Reanne Duffy

Signs and Labels Hereford puts another vehicle on the road for one of its regular customers and gives MetaCast MDC a chance to flex it muscles too…

Measuring economic growth, if you have an office full of civil servants to do the sums for you, is probably quite easy. Measuring the growth of creative potential is something that's a lot more difficult. That's not to say there isn't lots of evidence around pointing toward creativity having really put a spurt on in recent years though. Just take a look at the latest work from Hereford based Signs and Labels and the case is made.

Neon Heating is one of Signs and Labels, regular customers. The company has a fleet that's now approaching ten vehicles, and, as befits a plumbing and heating enterprise of its stature, it has a very strong identity projecting its brand and distinguishing it from its competitors.

What draws the eye to the vehicle in question is the lick of flame extending over its rear quarters. On the latest vehicle which Signs and Labels has delivered, the flames are orange. Each van in the fleet though features flames of a different colour. That's a really interesting approach. One theory suggests, but it actually makes the fleet look bigger. That may be right. It certainly doesn't diminish the potency of the design.

Other notable elements of the livery include the lettering itself. With a background field of black, the temptation to simply apply white lettering would've been there in the design phases but polished metal lettering features instead. It has a red in-line picking it out and adding further definition.

Signs and Labels recently upgraded its Roland printer with a new inkset that features an orange channel. The RIP driving the printer is able to map in the off-piste colour, substituting parts of the standard colour model and filling out parts of the colour gamut where the hotter elements would otherwise have to be compromised.

The digital photographs don't do full justice to the results of adding Orange. It is however a truly retina-scorching sight to behold. Not to be confused with fluorescent colours, the fuller rendition achieved by the orange channel avoids choppy gradation and really liberates the printer’s creative potential.

It liberates the materials’ potential too.

The Neon Heating livery is a brilliantly executed wrap. Ross Hughes and the team used MetaCast MDC Metamark’s next-generation premium cast wrapping film for the job. MD-Class materials from Metamark are designed to deliver genuinely superior results in terms of print quality to those expected of legacy materials. Signs and Labels’ wrap exploits that advantage to the full.

The van’s stock panel colour is black and the wrap covers the body to the front doors’ divide. The transition is practically indiscernible. The lettering elements comprise strongly contrasting Metamark Silver Polish cut and applied material. Use of this material in livery is by no means unknown, but it’s not commonplace either. It adds an unexpected element of surprise to the livery design.

Creative potential is there, latent, in the materials that are available and the technology industry uses. Turning that potential into something deliverable is what companies like Signs and Labels do. With its latest delivery for Neon Heating, the company has listed the creative bar a notch higher still.