Matthews Specialty Graphics (Greensboro, NC) and its parent company, Matthews Specialty Vehicles, collaborated to develop this mobile, prenatal-care clinic that’s designed to prevent pre-term labor – onboard amenities include exam and blood-drawing rooms – for the March of Dimes, which raises funds and conducts research to promote prenatal and infant health. Using van and truck chassis, Matthews Specialty Vehicles outfits custom buses and trailers for public-health, safety and educational purposes, and its inhouse subsidiary fabricates their graphics.

Matthews Specialty Graphics (Winston-Salem, NC) decorated this mobile, prenatal-care clinic with 3M air-egress film and a luster-finish overlaminate on its Mimaki JV5 printer and Zund plotter.

Kenny Bishop, Matthews Specialty Graphics’ art director, said, “Naturally, working on the same campus as the vehicle fabricator allowed us ideal access to develop the design and install the graphics.”

He said creating relief cuts, which help alleviate surface tension across the van’s surface, and using 3M Industrial Adhesives & Tapes Div.’s Primer 94 to clean and prep the surface for application, played significant roles in their success. The design proved challenging because the van’s template features several irregularly placed windows, and the pull-down awning track on one side required careful design and graphic placement, which Bishop developed using Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator.

Matthews produced the wrap on 14 panels per side, with a ½-in. overlap, using 3M Graphics Market Center Controltac air-egress film with a luster-finish overlaminate. The shop produced the graphics for the 40 ft. x 8½-ft. panel on its Mimaki USA Inc. JV5 solvent-ink printer, and it cut the panels to size with its Zund plotter.