Elite Signs and Graphics recognised for a brilliantly executed fleet wrap…

Alan Price and Sons Waste and Bulk Haulage is based in Bargoed, South Wales and, with a fleet of around seventeen vehicles, its livery graphics are often seen as the trucks take to the roads in the area and beyond.  

The company was founded just over fifty years ago and can trace the design and provision of its original fleet livery work back to the days when a man, armed with brushes and paint, would visit the depot and spend a couple of days turning a new vehicle into an advertising asset, or patching up inevitable damage and wear to those out there and already working.

Like most fleets, Alan Price’s came to transition away from paint and into cut and applied vinyl and its livery evolved through a succession of designs as use of the medium and the rapidly evolving technology grew. Today, Bridgend based Elite Signs and Graphics look after the Alan Price fleet, and, in the Elite team’s care, what amounts to a design revolution with its own story to tell, and which has delighted Alan Price Haulage, and its customers has been delivered.  

The new livery design, which Elite Signs and Graphics were invited to develop, and which they created in-house, involves stylised deer and it anchors what’s now the beginnings of a new tradition for the fleet as it goes forward into the next fifty years. It’s a design that reflects the Price Family’s association with deer farming and it’s been made possible by today’s print and materials technologies, and the skills of Elite’s designers and production specialists. 

The new livery would have been wholly impractical to achieve with paint, and beyond the capabilities of simple, cut vinyl. It turns heads wherever it’s seen and people ask of the vehicle’s drivers where the livery work was done. In its own small way, this involving and beautifully executed livery promotes wrapping as a medium and grows the market for wraps. 

Elite Signs and Graphics’ design does not compromise aesthetic impact for the sake of making production or application easier. It makes use of expansive fields of colour swept in tone and density that would readily reveal any deficiencies in printing - there are none. The design leads the eye thanks to elements of it flowing over the vehicle and so creating an application challenge that was obviously, and expertly, overcome. The design fully reflects the customer’s design brief and, in the final reckoning, exceeded expectations. The Elite team is proud of the work and delighted to be the recipient of a lot of praise that’s been directed our way for having delivered it.

In practical terms, the livery was, designed, printed, laminated and installed in-house. The team used premium materials throughout. MetaCast MDC material for the wrap foundation graphics, a little M7 for incidental elements and Metamark MDT Translucent material for the vehicles’ light boxes. Despite the materials being printed and laminated, when the liveries are retired and recovered, they’ll go on to become useful article such as footwear and traffic cones that can themselves be recycled time and again. All the production waste will be recycling too including release liners.

It’s a wonderful looking livery and the praise attracted hasn’t stopped with Elite’s customer and those who see Elite’s work out and about. On Monday 26th Feb 2024, Simon James, Elite Signs and Graphics’ MD, was invited to the stage at the UK Sign and Wrap Awards and he was handing the event’s Silver Award in recognition of the technical merit and quality of his company’s wrapping work. It’s richly deserved. Elite and its team has applied its efforts to creating a more energised marked for wrapping over the years and this award, given for a single piece of work, also stands in testimony to the company’s abilities overall.

Well done Simon. Well done, Elite Signs and Graphics.