Mobile Food News » Vehicle Wraps

National News: Nationwide Vehicle Wraps Manufacturer, JMR Graphics, Comments On A Bright Truck Wrap From A Canadian Small Business Owner

MFN Editor #1 — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 18:15:46 +0000

Nomad Gourmet

On January 21, 2012, Nationwide Vehicle Wraps Manufacturer, JMR Graphics,comments on an article posted on Daily Business Buzz about one Canadian mechanic turned food truck operator.

According to the article, the owner of Nomad Gourmet, Nick Horne, had left his job as a mechanic, which he held for over a decade, because he wanted to spend more time with his family. While he worked as a mechanic, Horne followed food truck trends in North America via television and the Internet.

Horne took paternity leave when his first child was born and researched as much as he could about entrepreneurial opportunities for himself. After finding several benefits for entrepreneurs, Horne purchased the food truck he uses for his business, which is based in Nova Scotia, from a Los Angeles supplier. The Nomad Gourmet food truck sports “a colorful vinyl graphic wrap to attract a downtown crowd.”

The article mentions that Horne replaced the standard food truck deep fryer with a smoker. This adjustment allows Horne, with the help of Chef Matt MacIsassc, to create haute cuisine meals, like brisket, that are uncommon for a food truck.

“Nick Horne’s food truck is beautiful, bright and inviting. It’s everything that you want to see in a truck wrap made to garner attention from viewers,” says David Hartman, a JMR Graphics representative. “The bright blue and green are really attractive and eye-catching, and the lettering is great. And the drawing of a nomadic chef carrying a bag of fresh produce through a field? It all makes you want to walk up and see what this food truck has to offer. As far as truck wraps go. It’s very inviting.”

JMR Graphics is an award winning Nationwide 3M Certified Manufacturer of Graphics for over a quarter of a century. We specialize in branding companies through Fleet Graphics, Vehicle Wraps, Architectural Wall Graphics, Promotional Window Clings, Floor Graphics, Event Signage and much more. We offer a variety of 3M Graphics Films, which are specially designed for most surfaces that require a changeable, short and long-term application. Our exceptional “Turn Key Service” is backed with a 3M MCS Warranty to give you peace of mind, when you need optimum performance for the intended life of your graphics. With our state of the art, cutting edge facility we inspire our clients by providing creative design, custom printed graphics and handle a network of nationwide installers. JMR Graphics provides expert capabilities and capacities needed to meet any graphic challenge.

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/1/prweb10340338.htm

http://www.dailymarkets.com/stock/2013/01/21/nationwide-vehicle-wraps-manufacturer-jmr-graphics-comments-on-a-bright-truck-wrap-from-a-canadian-small-business-owner/

Brooklyn, NY: The Loading Dock – Identity, Collateral, Packaging, Signage & Vehicle Graphics

MobileFoodNews.com — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 05:39:49 +0000

By Lawrence O’Toole | AdWeek.com

Design work for a food truck/art gallery located at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn. The problem facing the business was that it was hard to find, as it was indistinguishable from it’s industrial warehouse neighbors. The original sign was an actual “loading dock” placard, and most passersby would just have regarded it as a way in to the dock, not necessarily to a cafe.

We redesigned the identity in a way that kept the industrial nature but added a little more fun and color to help stand it out. We then extended that through menu, collateral and packaging. Finally, we designed the graphics for the next phase of the business, which was a larger food truck. The truck would be painted by hand, once again keeping the industrial look but softening it and making it more accessible.

Featured on Under Consideration’s Art of the Menu.

Designed in collaboration with Jolene Delisle through The Working Assembly.

http://talent.adweek.com/gallery/The-Loading-Dock/2399184

Menus On The Move

MobileFoodNews.com — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 01:02:21 +0000

By Tara Fitzpatrick | Food-Management.com

It didn’t take long for food trucks to reserve a parking space in the hearts of foodies. Though selections must be grab-and-go and casual, the best menu items are a marked departure from those found in a c-store or café.

The key question for a food truck—even before checking the tires and finding a good spot—is this: Is the menu road-worthy? Each item must be some combination of bold, original, exotic, comforting, fun, delicious and portable, preferably with a memorable name. And the offerings must appeal to the traffic you expect to intercept. To avoid getting left in the dust, each selection must be a virtual powerhouse. Weak menu items will only weigh things down.

“This is a different type of food operation, so we want menu items that reflect that—it has to unique and it has to be cutting edge,” says Eric Yung, executive manager for retail concepts at Miami University, Oxford, OH, where the strEATS food truck has had fans following it through campus since last fall (about 1,000 transactions a day).

Planning the menu, a yearlong process, centered around “fun food and different presentations,” but the one thing Yung says was paramount, “we knew it had better taste really good.” Before the menu was finalized, a mobile cart placed in a busy crossroads served as the testing ground. Honest feedback helped to winnow down the offerings from many vague flavor profile ideas to a couple dozen strong signature items. Today, consistency is achieved via Miami’s central production facility, where a lot of prep work is done each morning (for Cuban sandwiches, the meat is pre-measured, for example).

When plotting a food truck menu’s course, it helps to think like a foodie. Foodies are following mobile eateries (both on the streets and on their Twitter feeds) not just for fast convenience. They are seeking authentic global eats, often with a fusion twist. Out-of-this-world burgers and fries. Comfort in the form of a grilled cheese, maybe topped with kimchi. And certain foodies, in certain hours of the night, are looking for fried cheese sticks, chicken fingers, cheese sauce, French fries and marinara—all in one sandwich (it’s called “The Phat Jay” on Elizabethtown College’s Bird Feeder truck. More on that later).

Even if you are not planning on a food truck in the near future, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a limited-time finals week or orientation week promotion featuring “food truck-style cuisine.” One B&I operation even created a faux food truck façade on a permanent concept within the building.

Here, find seven hot categories of winning menu items, the star items on food trucks across the country and recipes that you can try on your own truck.

Street Food Fusion Menu Items

The blending of cultures makes for wonderful food truck traffic. After all, Kogi BBQ in LA, Roy Choi’s groundbreaking food truck, started it all with Korean short ribs tucked into a traditionally Mexican taco. Here are some food truck menu items that roam where they want to.

Fusion Menu Items

Wrap and logo design for a food truck serving pacific islander meals. Collaboration piece with design staff from UW Housing & Food Services Marketing Department.

The University of Washington’s Motosurf truck menu mixes and matches Korean, Hawaiian and Pacific Island street food items with just the right amount of the unexpected:

Kalua Pig: a plated lunch item—shredded pork and cabbage served with two scoops of sticky rice and one scoop of macaroni salad. The ‘pig’ also gets paired with miso mayo and Asian slaw on a slider.

SPAM Sliders: for adventurous diners…made with a slice of SPAM glazed with shoyu (a soy sauce popular in Hawaii and Brazil) and brown sugar; miso mayo and Asian slaw on a toasted roll. The SPAM gets mixed up with Japan in the SPAM Musubi, paired with sticky rice and wrapped in nori (seaweed).

Singapore Noodles: traditionally stir fried without sauce, are modified just a bit with the addition of coconut milk to create a saucier bowl on Rosie, the food truck at Rhode Island School of Design.

The Pork Sandwich: pulled pork that’s been marinated in Mexican spices, topped with a cheese mixture of Cheddar and Feta (the signature cheese mix for all the sandwiches on RISD’s Rosie truck), all served on a Portuguese muffin (just a little denser and sweeter than an English muffin), says Pierre St. Germain, executive chef/associate director of dining and catering services at RISD.

Banh Mi: a Vietnamese pork and pickled veggie sandwich.

Cuban Sandwich: grilled ham, cheese and pickles.

“They’re exotic but recognizable, and most importantly, they taste really, really good,” says Miami U’s Yung of the two most popular sandwiches (Banh Mi and Cuban) on the strEATS truck.

The Fud Truk at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, uses the names of different cars on various sandwiches to evoke international road trips:

The Fiat 500 (Italy) has marinated fresh mozzarella, mixed herb pesto and roasted peppers. The Land Rover Evoque (Great Britain) combines black pepper sirloin steak, caramelized onions, horseradish mustard and Cooper cheese. The Volkswagon Jetta (Germany) has lager-stewed bratwurst with cider-braised cabbage and Swiss cheese. The Honda Civic (Japan) is a crispy panko pork cutlet, pickled veggies, baby lettuce and a ginger-soy vinaigrette. (Back in the USA) the Ford Explorer is a sandwich with beef brisket, Pepper Jack cheese and homemade Buffalo coleslaw.

Bi Bim Bap Bowl: served with sautéed spinach, bean sprouts, carrots, kim chi (pickled vegetables) and more is topped with a sunny side up egg and hot pepper paste. Customers can add Lemon Grass Pork to the bowl, or edamame, Chicken Takalbi (sautéed in sesame oil and hot pepper paste) or Beef Bulgogi (traditional Korean BBQ) on the Flying Bison truck menu at Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA.

Sweet and Sour Pulled Pork Taco, topped with Napa cabbage ginger slaw: fusion in full effect (also on the Flying Bison truck).

Kids’ Stuff Menu Items

The food truck that rolls up to 200 different public schools in Orange County, FL, started out as an emergency feeding measure after a hurricane in 2004, says Kern Halls, area manager. “After a few years, we saw the popularity of the food truck craze just take off, so we thought we could do something more,” he says. Now, kids can sample food truck fare for the same price as regular cafeteria items (and everything on the truck is free- and reduced-eligible, too).

The menu was created with some inspiration from the Chefs Move to Schools program, Halls says. The most popular items:

The Hawaiian Burger: a beef patty with pineapple and ketchup mixed with Sriracha—(see the recipe at food-management.com) and the Buffalo Chicken Wrap. Pre-packaged fresh fruit (cantaloupe and pineapple spears) is also a cool choice for days spent playing in the hot Florida sun.

A lot of prep work—for cold salads, especially—can be conveniently done in the morning in the schools’ kitchens, Halls says. “We prepare some items in the school, and some in the truck. We have a lot of storage and refrigeration aboard the truck and that makes it really easy.”

Globe-Trotting/Regional Menu Items

The cultural road tripping that goes on with many food trucks can draw its inspiration anywhere from the streets of Italy to a Midwestern county fair. From Thailand to Route 66 and back again. Here are some great scenic detours:

Cilantro Chili Shrimp Rice Bowl: steamed rice, shrimp, snow peas, celery, carrots and baby corn in a cilantro-chili sauce from the Hungry Hungry Husky Truck (Northeastern University). Other bowls include Thai Basil Chicken and Orange Beef.

The Adobe Chicken Taco: shredded chicken on a flour tortilla topped with queso fresco cheese and a chipotle avocado barbecue sauce; and the Thai Beef Taco, grilled marinated beef on a flour tortilla topped with sautéed glass noodles and wasabi cream (also on the Husky truck).

Fried Cheese Curds: a true Midwest county fair staple found on the strEATS truck (Miami University).

Fried Sweet Bologna Sandwich with chips and mustard: on the Bird Feeder truck is inspired by “old ladies in Pennsylvania Dutch country,” says Joe Riddles, Jr., production supervisor, Elizabethtown College. “Sweet bologna is more like salami, but very sweet.”

Bodacious Burger and Fries Menu Items

Something of the 50s drive-thru ethos lives on in food truck selections that include a good old burger and fries. Of course, once on a food truck, they’re completely different than the Happy Days version.

Mac and Cheeseburger Sub: a funky mash up of American favorites is one of the top sellers on Elizabethtown College’s Bird Feeder truck, Riddles says.

The TNT Explosion Burger: fiery hot, with jalapenos and hot sauce.

The Happy Hippie: a veggie burger with sliced cucumber. (TNT and Hippie burgers are both on Elizabethtown’s Bird Feeder truck).

What’s a burger without fries?

“Our most popular item on the Hungry Hungry Husky is the Gourmet Fries,” says Deb Fantasia of Northeastern University. The fries take on quite a variety of identities, including:

Poutine: French-Canadian haute hillbilly fave consisting of fries smothered with cheese curds, green onions and beef gravy. Fries can also be ordered topped with smoked gouda and bacon or as Hash-n-Eggs, with Cheddar cheese, bacon, green onions and a fried egg or Greek style, with Kalamata olives, red onions, tomatoes, feta cheese and fresh oregano.

Fries are acting as a canvas for flavor at RISD, as well. “Rosie’s ‘Nachos’ are actually shoe-string fries topped with our zesty chipotle cheese sauce and a black bean salsa with corn and sundried tomatoes,” says St. Germain.

Real Deal (and also Vegan!) BBQ Menu Items

The Red Square BBQ truck at the University of Washington (part of UW Street Food, a collection of five food trucks that move around campus during the semester), offers a good selection of all things barbecue: pulled pork sandwiches, ribs, beef brisket, hot link sausage and sliders, all with a choice of House BBQ Sauce, Spicy BBQ Sauce or Carolina Mustard Sauce. Customers can choose to “spike it!” by adding a hot link or kielbasa to any BBQ sandwich.

But wait, what’s this?

Vegan Field Roast Sausage? And there’s even a Gluten Free BBQ Plate, with a choice of meat and sauce layered with beans and slaw.

Comfort Food Classic Menu Items

As adventurous as mobile menus can be, comfort foods like mac ‘n cheese, mashed potatoes and grilled cheese sandwiches all appear to be worthy road warriors.

The Stuffed Mac and Cheese Griller: on Northeastern’s Hungry Hungry Husky truck combines elbow macaroni with cheddar cheese and ham on brioche.

The Rolling Stone: a “Classic Comfort Sandwich” on the breakfast menu of Lehigh University’s Fud Truk, with brown sugar ham, two farm fresh eggs and American cheese on grilled country style bread.

Chorizo Mash Griller: from the Husky truck’s “Grillers” menu. Comfort food in a very new way with mashed potatoes (hello, grandma’s kitchen), Chorizo sausage and Havarti cheese (goodbye, grandma’s kitchen), all on French bread.

Late Nite Party Food Menu Items

“It’s something every college student loves, especially late in the night,” Riddles says with a knowing chuckle, describing the Bird Feeder’s signature sandwich:

The Phat Jay. It’s a sub roll that’s packed tight and then overflowing with chicken tenders, mozzarella sticks, French fries, cheese sauce and…marinara. “It’s crazy,” Riddles says proudly.

Breakfast-for-dinner (or at midnight), is a great trend for food trucks.

The Smothered Egg Wrap:on the Hungry Hungry Husky’s “Late Night Menu.” Scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, bacon, peppers and onions, wrapped up in a flour tortilla, the perfect night-cap.

Take a look at more recipes from food trucks:

• Hawaiian Burger
• Hash Brown Nachos
• Eggplant Fries with Zesty Lemon Yogurt Dip
• Spicy Orange Noodles
• Spicy Buffalo Chicken & Blue Cheese Torta
• Cocoa Rice Treat Balls made with Oreo
• Sam’s Soy Chorizo
• Buttermilk Truck Famous Biscuits

http://food-management.com/food-truck/menus-move?page=1

Philadelphia, PA: Not All the Appeal of a Food Truck is Inside

MobileFoodNews.com — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 17:18:59 +0000

By Caroline Tiger | The Inquirer

Local designer Sara Selepouchin applied her signature di- agram-style illustrations to Lucky Old Souls' food truck. (MATTHEW FELDMAN)

The design came to her in a dream. Just as Keith Richards came up with the riff to “Satisfaction” in his sleep, Cupcake Lady Kate Carrara woke up one Sunday in 2009 and quickly grabbed crayons to record her vision of a cupcake truck. When she brought the drawing of the white box truck sprinkled with giant jimmies and lined with a metal flounce to a car detailer, he said he could do everything except the giant cupcake springing from the roof. “Go under an overpass and you’ll knock that thing right off,” she remembers him saying. “He was right,” she adds. “That cupcake would have been toast.”

Aesthetic concerns about trucks’ exteriors are a new development in the world of food trucks. For the most part, those launched before 2009 can’t be found on Twitter. The owners of the old quilted stainless steel trucks are not concerned about a “wrap,” the printed vinyl skin that envelopes some of the newer vehicles. The shift has been swift and dramatic. Like Carrara with her Buttercream Cupcake, many truck owners treat their vehicles like mobile ads.

The tipping point in the growing focus on food-truck design may have come in fall 2010 when architect Jennifer Siegal taught a course at the University of Southern California on solutions for “the deployable free-range cuisine truck culture.” One of her students envisioned a vehicle with retractable legs that shoot up so the mobile cart could straddle and scoot over cars to deliver fresh doughnuts and coffee to captive commuters. That scheme is still more sci-fi than reality, but Jonathan Adams and Damien Pileggi upped the ante locally when they transformed an old DHL truck into Rival Bros., a deluxe coffee shop on wheels, this year and hired Red Tettemer to do the branding.

Creative director Todd Taylor listened to their influences – westerns, Americana, and rock-and-roll – and came back with the name Rival Bros., and a vintage image of two boxers with coffee mugs in place of gloves. The team kept the truck’s design simple to set it apart from its visually busy colleagues, and considered details that influence the user experience. Customers are greeted with a menu framed in reclaimed wood and speakers playing rock-and-roll or blues.

“The truck is a moving outdoor piece,” Taylor says, “but it’s also a vending experience. The window is the place where they meet the public.”

Addressing these multiple levels of interaction is key. “You want to strike a balance so it doesn’t look like much from far away, but so it is something you want to lean into and look at when you get close,” says Sara Selepouchin, owner and designer at Girls Can Tell.

Matt Feldman of Lucky Old Souls, a burger truck launched this fall, admired the diagram-inspired illustrations Selepouchin puts on towels and bibs at her East Passyunk shop and asked her to design some for his truck.

“Conceptually, the diagrams were a perfect fit,” Selepouchin says, “because Matt is so exacting about his ingredients and his menu.” She included a notation of his precise fry circumference, three-eighths of an inch, in her rendering of his fries.

Branding and designing a truck will never make up for inconsistent food, but James Moustafellos, associate director for the Center for Design and Innovation at Temple’s Fox School of Business, has found that it helps.

When he sends master’s of business administration and executive education students out to qualitatively assess North Philly’s trucks, they continually point to the Sexy Green Truck as a positive example.

“They’ve created the strongest package,” he says. “Everyone notices it because of the name, the branding – and the truck is bright green so you can’t miss it.” That truck’s success, he says, lies in its acknowledgment of what makes it different.

An unintentional result of all these sexy trucks is to transform the perception of the old guard’s lack of branding from dull to charming. The aesthetic chasm also handily illustrates food trucks’ level playing field.

Iron Chef Jose Garces’ truck, Guapos Tacos, is designed by Jun Aizaki, who also designed Tinto and Amada. Yet Tacos Don Memo, in a plain, quilted metal cart, gets equal or better ratings from foodies.

Still, Hilary Jay, executive director of DesignPhiladelphia, believes the decorated trucks make for a more successful city.

“In my mind they go together with the trash cans and the recycling trucks that were wrapped,” she says. “People are happier when they see appealing street furniture, design in motion, and things that are visually fun.”

Speaking of fun, Carrara is already dreaming of the next iteration of Buttercream Cupcake. She wants to project the cupcake logo into the sky, a la Batman. It would be like a retro version of Twitter. “I’ve got big dreams for the old girl,” she says. “We’ll see.”

http://articles.philly.com/2011-12-08/news/30490774_1_cupcake-truck-design-mugs

Buffalo, NY: Whole Hog Food Truck Turns Pink [video]

MobileFoodNews.com — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 06:03:14 +0000

by Allison Jagow | WGRZ

BUFFALO, NY – One of the local food trucks in Western New York received a new paint job Monday afternoon that suited it perfectly.

The Whole Hog Food Truck was painted a bright shade of pink. The color was chosen by Chef Kathleen Haggerty and is definitely appropriate. After all, they specialize in pork sandwiches and sides.

Chef Haggerty says pink is power and the mobile food movement is gaining momentum. “No one’s going to go up to a truck and buy something when the food’s not very good. So you’ve got to consider that. You better be a little bit at the front edge of things, I think anyway. Both as a chef and as a business owner,” said the chef.

The food truck business in Buffalo has been a hot topic for some time now. Vendors are waiting for the city to make a decision about licensing.

The Common Council is expected to take up this issue again in late September.

http://www.wgrz.com/news/article/133644/13/Local-Food-Truck-Gets-Fitting-Makeover-

Vehicle Graphics Do’s, Dont’s, and Advice

MobileFoodNews.com — Sat, 28 May 2011 19:30:42 +0000

By Lauren Fletcher | BusinessFleet.com

Vehicle graphics are a way to advertise a business or create an identity for fleet vehicles. To explore the “do’s and don’ts” of vehicle graphics, and gather advice for fleets, Work Truck spoke with Scott Morrison, director of operations/logistics of SkinzWraps, Inc.; Steve Whitaker, vice president of sales of Signature Graphics, Inc.; and Trace George, president/CEO of VSP Marketing Graphics Group. Graphic examples are displayed throughout this article.

Vehicle Graphic Do’s

What steps should be taken in determining graphics to place on fleet vehicles and which vendors to select? Here are some helpful ideas.

Use an experienced vehicle graphics designer to create the original version of the image and text and have an experienced vehicle graphic professional measure the vehicle.
Consider and communicate durability requirements.
Review the graphics provider’s financial strength and developmental support tools.
Request references and/or the design company’s portfolio. Because a local sign company can make signs doesn’t necessarily mean it can produce vehicle wraps, lettering, etc., for fleets.
Understand the value-added resources available from a supplier.
Use a certified graphic company to design and install fleet graphics.
Prepare an image that works appropriately with the vehicle.

According to George of VSP, many companies invest in products and services for their fleet display needs and often find they are left “holding the bag” when a problem exists.

Certified material companies follow industry standards. Every certified company must follow strict guidelines in material usage and proper installation methods, and are tested with stringent techniques.

“When a fleet desires graphic marketing, etc., it is a good idea to shop for certified graphic companies, as they have a strong backing from each product manufacturer. When a non-certified graphic company is used, it is likely a warranty issue would not be honored by the manufacturer, based on that company not using proper standard installation methods,” said George.

Vehicle Graphic Don’ts

Mistakes involving vehicle graphics can be costly. From the time and money it takes to fix a mistake to how a company is viewed, avoiding costly vehicle graphic mistakes should be a priority.

Mistakes that can and should be avoided include:

Vendor Selection

Do not base a decision exclusively on price. Numerous variables influence durability and may or may not influence the ultimate price.
Do not work with a company that doesn’t understand your fleet specifications. “It’s critical that your supplier understands your actual vehicles and how the design executes on your fleet,” said Whitaker of Signature Graphics.
Don’t choose a company that doesn’t understand your business requirements or doesn’t invest the time and energy to know exactly what is expected from your brand campaign over the life of the program.

Graphic Selection

Never price-out fleet graphics without adequate research and preparation.
Specify the time the graphic is expected to last. Most fleet graphics are specified for one, three, five, or seven years. Many applications for fleet design are usually for the length of the lease, loan, etc., before the unit exhausts its term of use.
Do not have different designs on a variety of body styles.
Never put too much info or clutter within the graphic marketing display. “Many companies think if they include everything they do, produce, etc., they are educating potential customers. The opposite happens when companies place too much info on their fleet vehicles. If people have too much to look at, they scan onto the next display or whatever catches their eye,” said George.
Avoid complicated designs that can present difficulties in installation and matching reprints when the vehicles are damaged due to an accident, etc.
Don’t allow anything produced without first previewing full-size art or a proof. “There are many ways to produce graphics. The quality of the production equipment and original art determines the quality and vibrancy of the final image. Requiring a proof demonstrates what the final product, full size, will ultimately look like,” said Whitaker.
Never use dark image colors on dark vehicle colors. Most marketing design needs vibrant colors with vivid contrasts.

Graphic Installation

Never power-wash the vehicle (especially with hot water).
Remove emblems on vehicles to prolong the life of graphics.
Don’t underestimate the difficulty of the installation.
n Never take the display text to the outside boundaries of the fleet unit’s working area. The text should always be contained within a 15-percent margin from the sides of the working area, such as the cube box, truck doors, etc. “Most people try to cram as much verbiage into a working area to the outmost areas, and the effect is very poor. Less is more, and in this case, less space used is more effective on the reader,” said George.

Advice to Fleets

Morrison suggests fleets purchase the same vehicle type and keep branding simple.

“You have many vehicles ‘duplicating’ the visual representation of your company. Sometimes less is more. Remember, these vehicles will need to be graphically maintained through the years. Your marketing department needs to be aware of the future cost to replace a complex design.”

Mistakes Whitaker has seen include using a film material not intended for fleet applications; using a technology that provides excessive liability risk; and buying a cheap graphic, then spending an inordinate amount of time coordinating distribution, installation, and maintenance. Quality graphics are only as good as the quality of the installation.

“Understand your requirements and expectations and hold your provider to the standards you expect, instead of settling for what they want to provide,” said Whitaker. “Utilize your provider’s resources for design, engineering, manufacture, distribution, and maintenance. Otherwise, you’ll spend an inordinate amount of time managing your program and spending excessive amount of time, energy, and money to get what you want.”

He suggests considering the entire lifecycle costs of developing and managing a program. “Use a company that understands your branding objectives and can develop a program to meet or exceed those objectives,” advised Whitaker.

Research is key, according to George. “If your company is testing the waters for fleet graphics, you should do some hard-core homework on economics, fleet requirements, DOT restrictions, and marketing comparisons versus other marketing avenues.”

George continued, “Most companies enter fleet graphics, advertising and/or marketing without searching for a proper company to assist them with those needs. Look for a company aware of fleet marketing methods.”

Many states restrict fleet markings, and companies should review DOT requirements before proceeding onto fleet branding graphics. WT

Vehicle Graphics Horror Stories

Scott Morrison of SkinzWraps has seen many examples of poor quality througout the vehicle graphics industry.

One such example was executed by another local company who claimed to be proficient in vehicle wraps.

“The outcome was a nightmare for our soon-to-be-client. The vehicle was brought to our Dallas office for review based on the other company’s dissatisfaction of the finished product,” said Morrison. “The wrap was ‘quilted’ together in many pieces, and the colors did not match from one panel to another. The paint had been scratched due to improper technique by the installer at the time of installation. The wrap was peeling in multiple places due to improper surface cleaning before the installation.”

This scenario is about as bad as it can get, according to Morrison, and can be a common occurrence. Designing, printing, and wrapping a vehicle is a complicated process, and not everyone understands just how hard it is to do right, he said.

This vehicle illustrates what can happen if graphics are not proofed prior to placement. Spelling mistakes and typos can change the complete meaning of vehicle graphics.

Trace George from VSP recalled a story from his company’s earlier years.

“One application that comes to mind is a graphics project we installed on a fleet of 30 transit buses. We were not aware of the need for laminating the prints to protect the image from fading, weather damage, and external physical elements. After the first year, the material we spec’d to last three years was not making it through the first year.

“The manufacturer would not warranty the material, and I wanted to stand behind this installation with my company’s name, so I removed the complete fleet graphic campaign to install a new series of laminated 3M Materials. I may have lost a lot of money on the failed initial project, but the re-installation gave my company credibility, as I stood behind my mistake,” George recalled.

http://www.businessfleet.com/Channel/Maintenance/Article/Story/2008/11/Vehicle-Graphics-Do-s-Dont-s-and-Advice/Page/1.aspx

http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2011/05/vehicle-graphics-dos-donts-and-advice/