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Bus Wraps and Branding

Bus Wraps and Branding

Vehicle graphics can turn a simple bus into a rolling billboard to market your service. Not to be confused with exterior transit advertising sold to generate revenue, branding vehicles involves using them to build visibility for your own service and communicate clearly that this is public transit.

 

Many small transit agencies have simple white cutaway vehicles without significant branding, which are often confused with social service vehicles. This perpetuates the misconception that buses are just for particular groups of people.

Tips for effective use of your vehicles as branding:

  • A distinctive base color should be used consistently for all vehicles. This becomes the "color of transit" in your community.
  • The front of the vehicle should be that same base color, to ensure people can recognize the bus when it’s coming down the road toward them.
  • All your vehicles should look substantially the same, even if you have several different sizes or types of vehicles.
  • Your agency’s logo should be in prominent positions on the sides and rear of the vehicle (and on the front if there’s space). 
  • Your phone number and website address should be prominently displayed on the sides and rear of vehicle, in a size large enough to read from a distance.
  • Beware of using scenic photos of your region if there are hotel shuttles or tourist buses in your area that do that. Simpler graphics usually will better convey that it’s a public transit vehicle.
  • If you sell advertising space on your bus exteriors, make sure your agency branding will still be visible when ads are placed on the vehicle



The costs of branding on vehicles can typically be considered capital expenses, paid with capital funding. It’s always a good idea to check with your state Department of Transportation to understand any state limitations.

Designing and producing your vehicles

You may want to apply branding graphics to new vehicles or your existing fleet. For new vehicles, you can usually work with the bus manufacturer, who will apply the graphics themselves or contract the job out to a trusted vendor. If you are applying branding to your existing fleet, you may be able to find a local vendor who has experience producing and applying fleet vehicle graphics. An online search for “fleet vehicle graphics” followed by your city, state, or region should return some results. Often vendors who do fleet vehicle graphics for commercial vehicles like delivery trucks have the experience needed to do transit vehicle graphics.


If you are ordering new vehicles, you may want to also do lower-cost partial rebranding of your older fleet. That might entail just painting or wrapping a portion of the vehicle. The goal would be to make your older vehicles match the new ones and clearly look like they’re part of the same brand, without spending much money on vehicles that may be retired soon. Over time, as you order new vehicles, your entire fleet will have the full graphics. 

Your vehicle graphics may be painted on, applied as cut vinyl, or full vinyl bus wraps. Often on new vehicles, the main background graphics and colors will be painted, while smaller details like logos and text may be cut adhesive vinyl. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach, and you should talk with your vehicle manufacturer or graphics vendor, as well as your own maintenance staff about these options. Painting the graphics will generally be a longer-lasting, more durable solution, but may be more expensive up-front. The cost, advantages, and disadvantages also may depend on whether you’re branding new vehicles or your existing fleet.


You may want to hire a graphic designer to design your vehicle graphics, or you might be able to work with designers at your bus manufacturer or your local vendor who is producing and applying the graphics.


We’ve not included templates for vehicle graphics because there are so many variations in bus types and sizes. You should be able to get a detailed template of your particular vehicle from the vehicle manufacturer. 

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The manufacturer of your vehicle should be able to provide you with detailed, scaled templates of your vehicle, including dimensions.

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