By signcraft
Posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2026
In a world where there are loads of generic things—from hamburgers to graphics—there are still plenty of customers who value custom graphics. For them, there’s something about their vehicle having a look all its own. It’s a look that’s not factory, not off-the-shelf, and certainly not generic.
For over thirty years, Erik and Cheryl Dickson have been doing signs and graphics from their shop, Erik Designs, in Rumford, Maine. Along the way, they’ve cultivated a market for custom graphics on vehicles, both commercial and personal vehicles.
“Most of our work is vehicles,” Erik says. “We do signs, but not a lot of high-end signs. It’s just the nature of my market. But we have a lot of pickups and larger vehicles here, and they wear these types of graphics well.”
Erik comes at the sign business from a car-enthusiast background. He’s always been into cars and graphics, and that has helped create his market. He likes taking advantage of strong custom graphics to add appeal to a vehicle.
“I guess I take a little different approach,” he says. “I like to use cool graphics to enhance a vehicle. And rather than adding a little pinstriping to a truck that I’ve lettered, I like to use graphics that I can tie into the lettering.
“The market for this work developed just as it does for all types of custom sign work: You put your best work out there, people see it, and they come knocking.
“We’ve always made sure our own vehicles had good graphics on them. I say that, though, as I look at our new shop truck and new SUV, both of which are still bare. We’re totally incognito today, but we won’t be for long. We’ve just been too busy to get to our own work.”
When you’re lettering a truck, bold graphics are a great way to add visual appeal to the entire vehicle. It’s not unlike the concept that’s behind good wrap design. You use the whole vehicle to capture the attention of the viewer, then immediately deliver the advertising message.
“When I’m doing both on a vehicle,” says Erik, “I like to make sure that if you took the graphics away, you’d still have a nice lettering job. And if you took the lettering away, you’d have a nice custom graphics job. But by coordinating the two with your layout and your colors, you can really punch up the look and attract more eyes to your lettering message. That’s what it’s all about—making it appealing to potential readers.
“Customers like that it’s distinctive—it’s custom and it’s their look. There’s creative thought going into it, as opposed to just ordering some stick-on letters or stick-on graphics.”
That’s the same reason other customers come to Erik just for custom graphics. They don’t have a business to advertise—they just want their vehicle to have a unique look. Custom graphics can deliver that.
“That work is a lot of fun,” Erik says, “because you’re giving them one-of-a-kind graphics. It’s just something that some people like, especially once they see it on other vehicles. We’re not in a highly populated area, so we don’t have much competition among customers like you might have there. It’s been a slower process, but it’s grown steadily. We don’t have a standalone custom graphics job [without lettering] in here every week, but I always seem to have one in the works.”
Erik uses both vinyl and paint for the graphics, depending on the job and the vehicle. Vinyl film can make this work easier to sell in some cases. It looks clean and professional, yet it can be removed when they sell the vehicle. “Vinyl works well on the big graphics,” Erik says, “but I still use paint for the traditional pinstriping. I usually reserve paint graphics for high-end vehicles. In these cases, they’re going to be well taken care of, and there’s not much concern about removing them when they trade the vehicle in.”
This appeared in the September/October 2014 issue of SignCraft.
