March 3, 2021 Reanne Duffy

A long term clients of Signhouse UK wanted a vehicle livery just that little bit different…

Signhouse UK is based in Barnsley, not far at all from the M1 if you fancy dropping in. The company extends a huge range of services to its potential and existing clientele, and puts a particular emphasis on the strength of branding used to promote businesses. It can work with tightly prescribed designs, or create something entirely from scratch for new start-ups. It's all in a day’s work at Signhouse.

Naturally enough, Signhouse attracts its fair share of vehicle jobs. Work comes to its door from businesses in the locality and from much further afield. It also has an established range of customers who bring new additions to their fleets to the company for the Signhouse treatment.

One such recent arrival, a repeat customer, was SGP Refrigeration, with the latest addition to its Van Fleet. The vehicle in question was dedicated to the delivery of refrigeration services and so would see a lot of road miles under its wheels. Given that it is said about 6000 pairs of eyes an hour see a vehicle when it's out on the road, it represents great value in terms of advertising.

SGP came to Signhouse with an existing logo, but wanting a new twist on it for its new vehicle’s livery. Dave Caswell and the team obliged. A rather large and stylised snowflake dominates the design and leads the eye to the logo itself on the vehicle flanks. If that sounds like familiar ground, read on…

Rather than going the conventional route with either digitally printed media, or straight cut and applied signvinyl, Signhouse got creative and rendered the giant snowflake in Metamark RF7, print receptive reflective media. The result doesn't so much invite attention, it demands it. 

The reflective media is expertly printed with an icy-blue gradation smoothly swept in density across the contour cut shape. Process inks are, of course, transparent and so light entering the the graphic bounces right back to source through the ink layer. As it’s the only graphical device on the vehicle that does that particular trick, it practically leaps out of the design the moment any light falls upon it. Put another way it lights up almost as though it's powered and has its own light source. The effect is spectacular. And it certainly puts a tick in the ‘different’ box.

The logo will ‘light up’ with the slightest excuse. Caught in a cars headlamps at night it becomes powerfully lit and conspicuous. Seen even at an incident angle in the sun it announces itself too. In regular daylight conditions it reads to the eye just like any other top quality printed digital graphic.

Getting creative is something of a specialisation at Signhouse. There are consequences. Anyone who sees the SGP livery showing itself off in dim conditions is likely to want the same treatment for their own vehicle graphics. As we said, Signhouse is Barnsley based and just off the M1 if you want to drop in for a chat.