Gray Line tours needed new artwork for the outside of their tour buses. The busses were completely wrapped in a photo design featuring some artwork I did along with pictures of some of their tour locations. Unfortunately, new advertising laws were passed soon after they decorated the busses and they had to strip all of the artwork off, leaving the busses bare as a baby in his birthday suit. Needless to say, plain white tour busses were not good for business.
They contacted me for new art with the following parameters:
- The artwork could only use elements from their logo (no photographs)
- The artwork could only use the colors of their logo
- The artwork couldn't cover the windows, which means it was going in a long skinny rectangle on the side of the bus.
- The artwork had to be done ASAP (this seems to be a requirement for most jobs…)
These parameters at first seem quite restricting, but a big part of the creative process is working within the specifications of job, whether they're budgetary, physical or legal.
I came up with a design that connected their logo to an illustration of a globe (an element of their logo) with flowing lines to give a sense of motion and action. We did the entire job in less than 4 days and the blank white busses now look like this:
They're very excited about the new design and its simplicity. Since we only used their logo art, it will be hard for the city to pass a law that would require Gray Line to strip the busses down again.