National Express are a long-standing client of Aura's, with a great partnership spanning over 15 years! As a bus and coach company providing transport services in 11 countries in the UK, Europe, North America, North Africa and even the Middle East, having professional, unified branding across all their vehicles is a must.
Completing 939 million passenger journeys annually, National Express vehicles are seen by millions of people, making them the ideal canvasses for branding, advertising, and sharing key messages. We provide both standard corporate livery branding and promotional branding, including mega rears, and have created numerous original designs for them.
Most recently, Aura was commissioned to complete a Madrid-themed full wrap including window graphics, a quarter wrap for National Express Scotland and a promotional quarter wrap advertising Clearpay.
When a new project phase is commissioned for either corporate livery or promotional branding, it’s essential that Aura get the vehicle specs before focusing on design. Templating and design challenges can occur as new vehicle types are made, so we must consider seams and other features that may interrupt the graphics. This allows us to ensure our designs give the maximum effect once applied.
Once the new designs are signed off, all new build graphics are sent to Portugal, where National Express coaches are built, for application. Promotional wraps are applied by Aura at National Express depots in the UK using our nationwide installation capacity. We provide all labelling internally and externally, such as floor graphics and Health and Safety stickers, and accompanying installation guides to show correct positioning. In more recent years this has included Covid-19 messaging to enable National Express to provide a safe and comfortable service for its passengers.
Out of hours logistics work must be carried out to minimise coach downtime and avoid service disruption. To achieve this, most wraps are completed at night and on weekends, thus requiring careful planning and organisation between Aura and National Express.
Aura has completed countless new build wraps and a multitude of promotional wraps for National Express over the years, and our collaboration continues into the future.
Projects range from wraps with two-way window film for the display of large uninterrupted graphics - such as the Madrid wrap - to half wraps for clear bold statements typically used for corporate branding, and quarter wraps focusing on mega rears for advertisements - such as Clearpay. We also provide decommissioning services when wraps reach end of life, and apply new wraps at National Express depots.
Every result is a flawless, eye-catching wrap that makes the National Express vehicles the instantly recognisable brand you see today. Aura’s international reach means projects can be coordinated across countries and National Express don’t have to liaise with multiple companies, making us their go-to branding partners.
We look forward to continuing our excellent relationship with National Express and providing them with more first-class branding!
