A city bus in North Dakota is helping the Christmas spirit go ’round and ’round this year, courtesy of a local signshop.
Custom Graphics Inc. (Fargo, ND) was tapped by Metro Area Transit (MATBUS), the public transportation system serving the Fargo area, to decorate a bus with a festive wrap. The shop designed the wrap to include gingerbread characters that appeared as bus passengers, with depictions of candy and icing to complete the holiday theme.
The wrap was produced using Oki’s Color Painter M-64S, 3M IJ180Cv3-10 vinyl, 60/40 Perforated Window Film and 3M Scotchcal 8518 Gloss Overlaminate. Along the way, Art Director Bill Kensok and his team were confronted with several challenges.
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To execute the design itself, Custom Graphics was limited to only using candy. The art team’s imagination brought the theme to life with cookie passengers, licorice bus poles, cookie trees, animals and a specially designed “cookie version” of the MATBUS logo. Even the driver on the back is recognizable as a MATBUS employee.
The shop then had to ensure its design perfectly matched the bus so the windows, and especially the icing in the artwork, lined up neatly.
“To make sure that the sides, rear and front of the bus all tied into each other perfectly, we decided to print the icing strips separately to be added at the edges of each side,” Kensok explained. “That made alignment much easier and it tied them all in together with much more control … giving it a more seamless look.”
Indeed, and one that makes MATBUS branding recognizable from Santa’s sleigh.