Elite Signs and Graphics gets to grips with a hard-working van that presented an unusual challenge…

It’s not unknown for drivers of vehicles that Bridgend-based Elite Signs and Graphics have provided with livery and graphics to be followed, and their drivers asked, ‘where did you get your wrap?’ In similar fashion, a towering reputation follows the company for calibre of the livery work it delivers. It’s not hard to see why.

While there’s no such thing as a typical Elite Signs livery, the Company’s approach to design, the quality of its print production, and its team’s application skills really distinguish Elite Signs and Graphics’ work. Known for its confident use of colour and expanses of background geometric elements that seem to flow over the vehicle, Elite has cornered itself a valuable specialisation in the markets it pursues. 

On that basis, many owners and operators of fleets, large and small, beat a path to Elite’s door to explore options. Recently, AAI, a company based in South Wales and specialising in Architectural Aluminium and Glazing numbered among them. They liked what they saw, and they became a customer.

Unusually, the work the Elite Team delivered for AAI spends at least some of its time obscured when the vehicles are out on the road. AAI’s teams have to transport components too big to fit inside their vans and so they’re fixed to the vehicles’ exteriors, hiding the livery graphics on the vehicle’s flanks. Once the component are delivered and installed, the livery is again visible, albeit through a lattice of load-mounting hardware.

The Elite team was challenged to come up with something that looked ‘Classic Elite’ any yet was able to work around the impediment to its being seen. They did. The job’s a great example of Elite’s work in fact. 

The design still employs all the elements that distinguish Elite’s work and the text-bound elements are artfully arrange so and to be visible through the vehicles’ load carrying hardware. The whole arrangement resolves itself brilliantly and the observers’ eyes tend to filter out the hardware and gather that vital big impression from the livery.

AAI’s vehicles are going to look their best for a long time. The Elite team reached for Metamark’s premium cast wrapping film and laminate to do the job. MetaCast MDC, being the MD-Class digital film it is, prints flawlessly and, in the skilled hands it found at Elite, delivered a flawless application.

Elite’s distinguishing qualities are easy to distil to a few words but far from formulaic. Every livery they do is an individual and every customer delighted. AAI’s job exercised the team a little more than most but you’d never know it to see the stunning result achieved.