Design

Best Unique Vehicles of 2013

These wraps and 3-D graphics expanded vehicle-graphic possibilities

Published

11 years ago

September 25, 2013

Steve Aust Signs of the Times October 2013 Issue

FIRST PLACE

Fabricators
Great Big Signs
Kyle, TX
(512) 796-4041
www.greatbigsigns.com

Full Print Solutions/FPS Wraps
North Hollywood, CA
(818) 438-8938
www.fullprintsolutions.com

Designers
Lynn Wilkerson
Devon Hanna
Great Big Signs

Installers
Great Big Signs
Full Print Solutions

Client
What’s Da Scoop?

With a captivating wrap and bold, 3-D graphics, What’s Da Scoop? blows your average Mister Softee truck off the road anywhere it goes throughout Dallas. (And, with such bodacious graphics, tinny speakers playing a loop of “The Entertainer” are unnecessary to draw a crowd). Touted as a super-creamy, “Northern-style” ice cream, it offers such exotic flavors as Fat Elvis, which includes banana, chocolate and peanut butter, and Blue Moon, which is made with Froot Loops®.

Truck owner Jonathan Wagner approached Wilkerson about producing 3-D graphics for the truck. In turn, Wilkerson enlisted Full Print Solutions owner Allen Avanesyan. Wilkerson cut the scoops from expanded-polystyrene foam, coated them with Ureshell polyurea hardcoat to make them durable, and fitted them around a supportive, steel armature.

Full Print Solutions/FPS Wraps produced the wrap on a Roland VersaCamm VS-640 printer/cutter with Avery Dennison MPI 1005 Supercast Easy Apply RS media. To keep the sunburst wrap and its identifying text colorful as a sales tool, Full Print Solutions applied Avery Dennison’s DOL 1360 glossy overlaminate to the wrap with a Royal Sovereign laminator.

SECOND PLACE

Fabricator
Creative Color
Burnsville, MN
(952) 746-4164
www.creativecolorstudio.com

Designers
Brent and Branden Luther

Installers
Steve Herrig
Kyle Willemssen

Client
Imola Motorsports

Imola’s owner asked Creative Color to wrap his Porsche 911 997 Turbo RSR Cup racecar with what Brent termed “a crazy art car with lots of color.” Using Photoshop and Illustrator, the Luthers created numerous lines and swoosh patterns, with random color splats on the sides that emulate a Jackson Pollock painting, and a design that bleeds off the back bumper. On the somewhat more understated hood and roof, Creative Color rendered the Porsche logo in matte-finish silver and red.

“The client is proud of our design and parked in the front of his showroom,” Brent said. “The balance of clean and chaotic creates a distinctive contrast.”

Creative Color printed the wrap on its HP Designjet L28500 latex-ink printer with 3M Controltac IJ180Cv3-10 air-release media. The installers used Milwaukee Tool heat guns, propane torches, 3M Gold nylon squeegees and wrap-application tape to complete their work.

THIRD PLACE

Fabricator
Auto Trim Design of Northeast Wisconsin
Neenah, WI
(920) 832-0094
www.autotrimdesign.com

Designer
J. Michael Thienel

Installer
Judy A. Kraemer

Client
Private owner

Selling Price
$995

Wrapped bikes have become increasingly popular, and vinyl’s ever-improving conformability, in smoothing the film over motorcycles’ curvy chassis and gas tanks, has made such jobs easier. Thienel designed the project with Scanvec (now SA Intl.) Inspire, Corel Photopaint and SA Intl. FlexiSign Pro. Auto Trim produced the wrap with Oracal 3951RA air-release media, which it printed on a Mutoh ValueJet 1204 solvent-ink printer, and protected it with Oraguard 290 cast overlaminate.

HONORABLE MENTION

Fabricator
Auto Trim Design of Northeast Wisconsin

Designer
J. Michael Thienel

Installer
Judy A. Kraemer

Client
Private owner

Selling Price
$1,500

click to Comment(Comment)

Introducing the Sign Industry Podcast

The Sign Industry Podcast is a platform for every sign person out there — from the old-timers who bent neon and hand-lettered boats to those venturing into new technologies — we want to get their stories out for everyone to hear. Come join us and listen to stories, learn tricks or techniques, and get insights of what’s to come. We are the world’s second oldest profession. The folks who started the world’s oldest profession needed a sign.