What belongs on a company vehicle.

Three seconds

Anyone who sees a vehicle in traffic rarely has more than a few seconds. In that time it has to be clear who this is and what the business does. Everything else is a bonus.

That leads to the most important rule: less. A name, a service in two or three words, one way to get in touch. Nobody reads a list of twelve services while driving past.

What goes on which side

The sides. Name and service large, readable from a few metres away. This is where the vehicle stands at the customer's, and where it gets photographed.

The rear. The surface that is seen the longest: at traffic lights, in jams, behind you on a country road. This is where the name and one way to get in touch belong, the website address or a phone number.

The front. The symbol or the name is usually enough.

Type, contrast and brand

Legible means large enough and clearly set off from the background. Dark lettering on a light vehicle or the other way round, no thin typefaces, no lettering over busy images.

The vehicle is part of the brand, not a project of its own. Colours, type and symbol should be the same as on the website, workwear and stationery. In a generational handover, the fleet therefore belongs in the plan early on, see Rebranding in a business succession.

Clarify before ordering

Partial lettering or full wrap? For legibility, good partial lettering is often enough. A full wrap pays off when the colour itself is part of the brand.

Leasing. For leased vehicles, clarify beforehand whether and how the lettering has to be removed on return.

One template for all models. New vehicles are added, models change. A design that adapts to other dimensions saves work later.

An example from our work is the vehicle design for Autohaus Roth with FAISST.