Fades or Fads? | MAXIM Australia

Auto Artisan takes us through their journey of colour fading wraps, to show us how it all started and where it’s leading to…

When the trend of fades started, we were asked by a few customers if it would be just a fad? After seeing many different wrap styles come and go, some customers insisted this would definitely be a passing fad. Others felt it may last a while longer, similar to the days of “sex spec” euro cars, or the days of Auto Salon when we had automotive enthusiasts spending endless dollars to make their cars stand out with huge modifications. Will this look last a year? Can it last an entire decade? Well, here’s our story.
At Auto Artisan we work extremely hard to lead the line of automotive wraps and crazy ideas. We constantly try to take things to the next level. However, we can’t say we were the first to ever carry out a fade wrap (alternatively known as a gradient wrap). The inspiration came from the U.S.. That was our first glance, to be specific, RDBLA wrapped Chris Brown’s Lamborghini Avendator in black with a stunning transition to red. They also provided matching wheels, red front wrap with red wheels, black back with matching black wheels on the rear.
Wraps and colours, everything about the automotive industry is completely subjective to the individual. When our customer came to us and said, “I want this wrap” (pointing to the RDBLA Aventador) our first reaction was, “Really? You want that?!” Then we quickly changed our mind. Subjectively speaking, one of the things that stood out to us as “overdone” was the red and black aftermarket wheels — we felt they just didn’t suit the car.

FIRST ARTISAN FADE — THE LAMBORGHINI AVENTADOR

We decided to take on the challenge and provide this fade wrap, but we had to take it up a notch. We didn’t just design and print the entire wrap — we designed and printed only a quarter of the wrap. Don’t think this made it easier, it actually made it much more difficult but in a good/experimental way. We literally just printed the fade on the doors and the door jambs. A lot of planning went into getting this transition correct. The front end of the car utilised manufactured Vinyl by Orafol known as ‘Luscious Lips’ and the back was tricky part. It was the factory gloss black from Lamborghini, we applied clear paint protection film to the entire rear half and the goal was to match our printed black to the factory black — what a mission. But we did it! This was the first and last fade wrap we did for quite some time. It grabbed a lot of positive attention, but no-one else wanted to get on board with it. It was just too new and ‘scary’. So, we took the plunge, personally, and designed our own cars with fade patterns to really showcase what is possible. Again, we can’t just ‘fade’ our own car — we need to showcase so much more!

THE LOUIS VUITTON PORSCHE 996

Shortly after, the same customer with the Lamborghini decided to wrap his McLaren with a pearl white to pink gloss fade. We got on board, designed the entire wrap, provided print samples, and went into full production. Then, he sold the car before we could even wrap it! So, he said, “You know what, I’ve paid you for the work you’ve done. Keep it as a birthday present and use it if you can.” And so we did! We were considering wrapping a Porsche 996 in glitter pink, but we decided to use this material which was ready to go.
Here is the fun part — we coincidentally found a pair of Louis Vuitton sneakers which matched the colours so well to this wrap. The sneakers faded from white to pink as well but with one main difference. There was a LV logo repeating across the shoe which faded out. So, we decided to emboss the “LV” pattern under the entire wrap, of course, and we changed all of the emblems to generic ones. This way we didn’t breach any copyright laws.

AMG GTS WITH PETRONAS

We started on the AMG GTS and came up with an awesome idea to fade the car from black to teal. After we settled on the design and colours, we noticed it was a very similar teal to the Petronas F1 sponsor colours. So, we decided to reach out to Petronas Australia and before we knew it, we had an awesome project ahead of us. Again, it wasn’t going to be just a fade wrap, we wanted to kick start something cool, which was to emboss the Mercedes stars under the entire rear part of the wrap to carry out some elements from the Mercedes AMG Formula 1 car design.
We printed the entire wrap on a reflective material, which meant as the lights bounced off the wrap at night, or during the day with strong sun, the colours glowed like a really bright neon light. It just looked incredible and we garnered a lot of great attention with this one.

THE PORSCHE BOXSTER WITH SMOKE EFFECT

After the LV Porsche we met the lovely Jodie and her husband. Jodie’s husband had an idea to gift her with a fade wrap. Her favourite colour is blue and we settled on a nice fade from dark blue to light blue, but the difference for this one was the smoke effect which transitioned through the centre part of the wrap. It came up amazing! More and more we noticed the fade wraps gaining understanding and traction around the world. However, in Australia, it seemed we were more reluctant to embrace the new creative scope as quickly as the rest of the world.

THE LUSCIOUS LIPS STINGER GT

Next we met the dealer principle of Peter Warren Kia — who would have thought a strong-branded, corporate group would get on board with such wild wraps?! The trial vehicle was a brand-new Stinger GT which we labelled as ‘Luscious Lips’. This was identical to the Aventador, but truth be told… the fade gradient was so much better. The Stinger has four doors and is much longer than the Aventador, so you can really extend the gradient over a longer distance and it made a huge difference.

THE CHRYSLER 300 WITH DUAL DIRECTION FADE

Eventually, we were approached by Tony, the dealer principal of Peter Warren Chrysler. He had a limited run of cars coming into the country and he wanted to do something really unique as a selling point for his customers. We jumped on to XIX 3D software, brought up a Chrysler 300 and played around with different fade patterns from white to black. As we were making changes, the gradient fell over the bonnet as well as the side of the car, he really liked the look of this. We were taken back a bit, because we knew this design was easy to render on a computer, but it proved to be much more difficult to achieve in real life.
We don’t back away from creative projects, so we agreed to tackle the project. It took a lot of trial and test fitting, we wasted endless amount of materials and labour. We even uncovered problems, which we didn’t even know existed. Eventually we got there.

THE FAIRY FLOSS STINGER GT

Then, we noticed a few wraps again in the U.S. labelled as “Cotton Candy” — they were matte wraps transitioning from pink to blue on a 45-degree angle gradient, it was a daring look. Adam from Kia loved that idea of Cotton Candy. He had set his mind and decided to pursue this wrap. The purpose was very clear. There are not enough females purchasing the Stinger’s. Adam wanted a shift in dynamic, a new demographic to reach.
The Cotton Candy wrap was cool, but it could be cooler. So, we changed it up. Plus, we can’t just straight out copy someone else’s work. We decided to add a ‘Cotton Candy’ appearance to the design with a cloudy effect. Also, let’s face it, we are in Australia, so it had to have a new name — and just like that, ‘Fairy Floss’ was born!

THE SNAKE SKIN McLAREN GT

Right now, as you read this, we have a new customer who came to us with a brand new McLaren GT. Having read the article on our website about fade wraps, he was really interested in achieving a similar look. He didn’t want to have front to back transition through, he really wanted to get creative. We had a good, lengthy chat and went over an array of various designs, patterns, colours, fade types and more. He said there was a factory MSO matte blue to green fade design that was available. He really liked it, and to be honest, so did we. We took on the design and made A LOT of Artisan changes!
With multiple design variations, embossing patterns, even changing the colour of the wheels to suit, we finally settled on something wild. The idea was to create a representation of a Snake, almost like a Cobra, when the doors went up. We used a colour shifting material from Orafol called ‘Avocado’. This particular film is green but under different lighting conditions it changes to a brown colour, which matched the customer’s interior. We added a lot of hand drawn brush strokes into the design as well. You can see the rendered images on this page.
Of course, we would love to show you the finished product, but we aren’t finished with the wrap. The completed project will be uploaded to our social media platforms and our website so keep an eye out!

THE VERDICT

To sum up, we have been working on some amazing projects with really creative-minded customers and it has been an extraordinary experience to say the least. However, we are absolutely certain the fade wraps are a fad. Is that a bad thing? No. There are so many trends which come and go in life. Even the simplest things you can think of, such as painted brick work on houses, timber furniture, clothing, accessories, certain colours… the list just goes on and on. Whether it’s a short-term fad or it lasts for a decade, we do these things because we like to be unique. As Artisan’s we are not always pleased with the status quo. We always want to achieve bigger and better. ■