March 25, 2021 Reanne Duffy

Erdington, Birmingham based Angel Signs and Graphics gets to grips with a bus it has seen before…

Off The Scale is a concern that took a great idea and really made it happen. At the time they first got to grips with their inventive advance, they were trail-blazing. Lots have since followed those blazes and signposts. 

The basic idea revolves around the fact that most of us tire of items of clothing, or outgrow them in other ways, long before the functional role of the garment is superseded or the garment no longer works. Rather than commit a garment to a prolonged exile in a dark cupboard or worse, why not up-cycle it and give it a longer life? 

The idea clearly appeals to those who go looking for garments which are, in turn, looking new homes. The concept defines a popular clothes shopping format. The commercial transaction is an interesting one too. The clothing comes off the peg, but it's sold off-the-scale, by weight in other words. The money this raises benefits great causes.

Off The Scale operates in conventional retail space but also has a static bus. Erdington based Angel Signs and Graphics first got to grips with the vehicle about five years ago. It was in a bit of a sorry state with battle rash all over its blue and white paintwork. A nice, total coverage wrap in an appealing shade of green, reflecting Off The Scales’ colours took care of that.

Angel Signs has more recently had its hands on the bus again. This time the vehicle’s owners wanted the existing wrap enhanced with some graphic embellishments which evoke the vehicle markings seen on the roads in Pakistan.

That brief sent the creative team at Angel Signs looking for sources of reference. Once found, the design was composited onto the vehicle profile and the printing could begin.

The job was done on laminated Metamark MD5-H. The MD-Class digital credentials of the material make the most of Angel Signs’ printing skills and the applied job does precisely what was intended. It flags the fact that arts and crafts now reside within the static vehicle and hints powerfully at their origins.

It’s not every day signage companies get to revisit the earlier works and enhance them. Then again, for sign companies versatile and creative as Angel Signs and Graphics, no two days are ever the same and who knows what's going to turn up next.