Expert Help With Van Signage Design: Add Creativity and Interest to Your Fleet

Here at WrapUK, we often clarify the huge benefits of impactful van signage, standout vehicle graphics and vibrant full-colour vehicle wraps – but we also appreciate that fleet managers or business owners who don’t work in creative professions can find the design process difficult.

The design quality of a wrap or fleet livery is fundamental to achieving real returns against the investment made. That’s because even the brightest, boldest and professionally applied wrap might look great, but it won’t drive impressions or enquiries if the placements or content aren’t memorable or easy to see.

While our talented in-house designers can, of course, assist, we’ve put together some top tips that may be particularly helpful if you’ve an outline or rough design but feel like something is missing, or your van wraps aren’t quite creative enough to make the impression you want.

Tip 1: Keep Your Van Graphics Simple But Striking

All too often, we see intricate van sign writing that looks incredible but is so complex and busy that a motorist or passerby would struggle to consume any of the information you want them to recall.

The best advice is to focus on simplicity and clarity, using clever design that makes your message absolutely clear. Cluttering the panels with too many swirls and shapes can mean that:

• Essential details like your company details are obscured, remembering that a truck or livery is a moving target, and your wrap needs to make an impression in just a few seconds
• Expanding full-colour photos, however on-brand, to cover the surface of a vehicle results in grainy, pixelated images
• Potential customers might be paying attention, but aren’t really sure what you do, or what your brand stands for

It can be very tempting to use as many of the millions of colours, effects and features available, but if you concentrate on those core messages you want to deliver, and use a consistent colour palette that reinforces those elements of your wrap, the results you see will be far better.

Tip 2: Make Your Fleet Wraps and Decals Consistent

Larger fleet vehicles like lorries and trucks naturally have a bigger surface area, which means your company branding can be as bold and super-sized as you like. Our guidance here is to aim for consistency across your entire fleet, from company cars to your biggest HGVs.

That’s because a uniform colour palette, logo, fonts, and style make your brand recognisable, so a customer will never be in doubt about whether they’re seeing the same business working in and around the local area or have spotted several vehicles with vaguely similar wraps.

Van wrapping lends itself incredibly well to these fleet projects, as we can scale graphics and logos up and down as much as you need, without compromising the crisp sharpness that makes signage easy to read and remember, even from a distance.

Tip 3: Use Creative Fonts That Remain Legible and Clear

Vans and company cars act like mobile billboards that carry your contact information everywhere you work, deliver, or travel. The ideal is to create artwork that showcases who you are and what you do, prioritising this over captivating imagery that doesn’t tie directly back to your business.

Creative wrap design is all about using the right shades and fonts that make your branding stand out, but it’s still essential that every word is visually interesting enough against the background so that it catches the attention of your potential customers.

Strategically placed words, logos and icons that tell motorists, public transport users and local businesses how to get in touch, for instance, should never be placed on a background with a similar shade – even if this looks great on the screen.

That’s because while a person is driving or walking, or your fleet vehicle is in motion, you want that information to be instantly recognisable, with large fonts that remain legible even in overcast or rainy weather.

Tip 4: Think About the Key Details That Matter Most

If you have a split second to communicate why your business offers great value, or why you’re the ideal solution for a client, you want them to remember specific information, whether your website address, the main services you’re promoting, or why you’re an expert in your field.

Van signs that focus on emphasising those most important details work to your advantage, because you’re optimising the value you receive in terms of enquiries, website visits, or social media follows, making your wraps and fleet decals more cost-effective.

This design principle is similar to that you might use when creating landing pages, where you have a hierarchy of information, and can rank the logos or images you might consider for your fleet wraps and be selective about which you include, and which you don’t.

Tip 5: Design Van Signage for the Shape of Your Fleet

Our final tip can depend a little on whether you have a fleet that largely comprises the same model of van or lorry, or whether you have a diverse number of vehicles of different shapes and sizes, but where possible it’s well worth thinking about the physical characteristics of the vans that spend the most time on the road.

For instance, if each work van is a Ford Transit or Mercedes Sprinter, two of the most common vehicles businesses use, consider the curves, bodywork, and panels within your fleet that have the greatest potential to expose your branding or promotion to a large audience.

That means that you may need to think about the following when designing high-quality signs:

• Larger-scale wraps and decals for bodywork panels with flatter surfaces, which act as a blank canvas
• Avoiding curved and rounded bodywork, where lettering that runs round a corner or an angle won’t be as easily visible
• Whether to add logos across rear doors interrupted with windows and handles, or make best use of sliding doors that don’t feature any accessories or fixtures

Using a digital visualisation to see how the wrap will look in real life can be useful, as it avoids the mistake of designing an incredible van signage display only to find that it doesn’t work well once applied because it doesn’t conform to the vehicle’s shape.

Expert Help With Professional Van Signage Design

We hope these tips have helped you move forward with your design project and highlighted some common errors or niggles that you can easily avoid. 

If you need further help creating the perfect advertisement for your fleet or work vans, or would like assistance from our design professionals, you are welcome to contact the WrapUK team at any time.

Alternatively, we recommend visiting our online galleries, where you’ll find numerous examples of high-quality van signage.