Big Picture - October 2019 - 26

SEND IN THE CAVALRY

The owner of Antioch Heating and Cooling, named for the
Illinois town where it's headquartered, wanted to rebrand to
clarify to customers that the HVAC business served a broader
area. The company turned to KickCharge Creative (kickcharge.com), a creative services agency focused on brand
development, wrap design, traditional graphic design, and
digital marketing. The agency works with a variety of clients,
but they have carved a niche in HVAC fleet branding, having
designed more than 300 HVAC brands. Dan Antonelli,
president and chief creative officer at KickCharge who will

present on wrap design at ISA Sign Expo, says the first
challenge was renaming the business. They landed on the
moniker Comfort Cavalry, which draws on the owner's
background as a veteran of the US Marine Corps.
KickCharge created the overall branding for the newly
renamed company and then set about incorporating the new
imagery into a wrap design for Comfort Cavalry's service
vehicles. "The biggest challenge was trying to think outside
the box and try and envision what a wrap might even look like
in the late 1800s. So, we thought the idea of a covered wagon
could be cool and the van shape seemed like it might support
the idea," Antonelli says. "This particular vehicle has some
odd characteristics, basically, a more vertical/square canvas
than most service vans."
The Graphics Company (thegraphicsco.net), a vinyl wrap
business in Gurnee, Illinois, tweaked the artwork on their
template to make it appear that the canvas was folding over the
hood. They printed the graphics with an HP Latex 365 onto 3M
Graphics Film with Comply Adhesive 180mC and 3M Scotchcal
Gloss Overlaminate 8518. After the visuals were installed by the
Graphics Company, the project was still being perfected. "We
noted that the logo above the cab was smaller than we hoped,
so an overlay was produced and we made it bigger," Antonelli
adds. The end result was a satisfied client with a new identity
and a new look to their fleet of vehicles to make their mark on
the neighborhood and beyond.

BIG PICTURE

October 2019

THE DUKES OF ONTARIO

The 1980s TV series - and subsequent 2005 movie - "The
Dukes of Hazzard" was as much about the rabble-rousing
Duke brothers and their tiny-shorts-wearing cousin Daisy as it
was about the cool cars featured in the ubiquitous chase
scenes. The Duke brothers' signature orange Dodge Charger
was quite possibly the most popular "character" on the show
and the vehicle's look has been replicated time and time again.
Picture This Wraps and Graphics (picturethisad.com)
specializes in vehicle wraps for clients near their location in
New Orleans as well as fleet graphics across the country. One
client reached out to the shop seeking a version of a partial
"Dukes of Hazzard" wrap they had installed several years prior.
The customer had spotted a photo of the original wrapped vehicle - which looks like the orange design of the TV car is
creeping out from under black paint - on social media and
combed the internet until he found the shop that created it. "He
never felt like he was dealing with professional companies that

could take on his challenge, so he found the creators of the one
he first saw and hunted us down to do his," says Trey Matula,
president of Picture This Wraps and Graphics.
For the new client, the company's designer revised their
original artwork into a full wrap with some added personal
touches. The team imaged the graphics with their HP
DesignJet L26500 onto 3M Graphics Film with Comply
Adhesive 180mC-10 with 3M Scotchcal Gloss Overlaminate
8518. There was one problem: the client lived more than 1000
miles away from Picture This - in Canada. Once the graphics
were printed, they were shipped out for installation to a vinyl
graphics company, Streamline Designs (streamlinedesigns.
com), in North Tonawanda, New York, which is just across the
border from Canada. The client was so pleased with the end
result that he sent a video of his car (shot in a gravel pit as an
homage to the TV show) and even added a "Dukes of
Hazzard" car horn to complete the vehicle, Matula adds.

http://www.thegraphicsco.net https://www.kickcharge.com https://www.kickcharge.com http://www.picturethisad.com http://www.streamlinedesigns.com

Big Picture - October 2019

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