Emirates Bus Wrap Takes Off

By yadz | January 20 2009

Continuing their promotion of nonstop service to Dubai, Emirates airlines needed a bold campaign to show off their luxury cabins. Working with Boston-based ism, they settled on a clever concept: dressing ho-hum New York metro area commuter buses up as sleek Airbus a380s.

Once upon a time, the execution would have been daunting. Emirates grounds one of its planes during prime travel hours. The photographer and her entourage fly in for the shoot. A crew of stylists, producers, art directors and airport staff are there on set. Afterward, the photographer and retoucher pore over hundreds of pictures, searching for the right shots to manipulate. Then hours of pixel pushing to get the photos looking exactly right.

ism thought that sounded like kind of a drag. So instead, they called Big Swing.

Our formula was simple: illustrate the windows and doors, then marry them with existing graphic art. Having worked with ism and Emirates before, we understood the aesthetic and could anticipate the look and feel the client had in mind.

First, a call to the print vendor for the wrap template. Once we had the specs, we used references from the client to draw the windows, doors and fuselage. Then we integrated the images into Emirates’ graphic art. The client approved, and voila, our bus was ready for takeoff.

Better quality, less expensive, and faster than the other guys. That’s Big Swing. Photo illustration with a push.

Filed in Advertising, How we get stuff done, Illustration, Just finished