Send in the Cavalry

The owner of Antioch Heating and Cooling, named for the Illinois town where it’s headquartered, wanted to rebrand to clarify to customers that the HVAC business served a broader area. The company turned to KickCharge Creative, a creative services agency focused on brand development, wrap design, traditional graphic design, and digital marketing. The agency works with a variety of clients, but they have carved a niche in HVAC fleet branding, having designed more than 300 HVAC brands. Dan Antonelli, president and chief creative officer at KickCharge who will present on wrap design at ISA Sign Expo, says the first challenge was renaming the business. They landed on the moniker Comfort Cavalry, which draws on the owner’s background as a veteran of the US Marine Corps.   

KickCharge created the overall branding for the newly renamed company and then set about incorporating the new imagery into a wrap design for Comfort Cavalry’s service vehicles. “The biggest challenge was trying to think outside the box and try and envision what a wrap might even look like in the late 1800s. So, we thought the idea of a covered wagon could be cool and the van shape seemed like it might support the idea,” Antonelli says. “This particular vehicle has some odd characteristics, basically, a more vertical/square canvas than most service vans.”

The Graphics Company, a vinyl wrap business in Gurnee, Illinois, tweaked the artwork on their template to make it appear that the canvas was folding over the hood. They printed the graphics with an HP Latex 365 onto 3M Graphics Film with Comply Adhesive 180mC and 3M Scotchcal Gloss Overlaminate 8518. After the visuals were installed by the Graphics Company, the project was still being perfected. “We noted that the logo above the cab was smaller than we hoped, so an overlay was produced and we made it bigger,” Antonelli adds. The end result was a satisfied client with a new identity and a new look to their fleet of vehicles to make their mark on the neighborhood and beyond.