The Brief
I have been friends with Kyle Martinez, the owner of Ace Wraps for years.
(He won’t mind me sharing his name publicly).
Over the past few years as he’s gotten himself more established, he’s started sending some of his clients my way for vehicle wrap designs.
In 2023 he referred Mr. B to me to help do a revamp of his motorhome, Le Cara Bell.
Kyle had already wrapped the front in black vinyl, and sent me images for me to use as my proof/mockup references:
The Design
Mr. B came with a general vision in mind to suit him:
- He’s a direct descendant of the legendary pirate Sam Bellamy, so he wanted a pirate theme.
- With this in mind, I sourced a suitable pirate typeface.
- And the classic Jolly Roger pirate flag for the skull.
- He’s a beekeeper, so he wanted a honeycomb design with bumble bee elements for the kids.
- He’s a joiner, so he wanted joiners hammers in place of the classic cross-bones.
- He wanted a black and gold colour scheme. Gold is symbolic of honey.
The logo I made for Bell embodied all of these aspects:
I couldn’t find a decent-quality tileable honeycomb stock vector.
So I designed it from scratch:
The drop shadow effects made my Illustrator workflow painfully slow in the final stages…
But I found a way around that.
The Proofs
I sent him visualisation proofs throughout the process.
I was being paid by the hour for this job so I was happy to do a few proofs to make sure Mr. B was happy.
Originally, the entire shell was going to be wrapped in honeycomb print.
But the gloss black vinyl application was the cheaper alternative.
So after some final tweaks…
Print Files
The Final
The end result turned out nicely.
Mr. B’s ancestor would’ve been proud.
I included some bees along the sides for the kids as well, as requested: