Roots Tattoo Convention

In a country like New Zealand, tattooing isn’t just an art form — it’s identity, heritage, and self-expression etched into skin.
When we were approached to promote the very first Auckland Tattoo Convention, the brief was simple: make this vehicle impossible to ignore. It needed to turn heads at speed, spark curiosity at a standstill, and embed the event in the minds of anyone who saw it on the road.
 
The challenge? A passionate young couple with a bold vision — but a limited budget and no production-ready artwork. What they did have was raw creativity: hand-drawn tattoo concepts on tracing paper, later digitised onto an iPad. From there, our designer rebuilt every element from the ground up in Illustrator, transforming rough sketches into precise, printable vector artwork without losing their authenticity.
 
Overall Visual Impact & Clarity

We pushed beyond the conventional look of tattoo art. Instead of clean, solid lines, we imagined ink at a microscopic level — where pigment forms organic clusters and fluid “globs.” The result is a design that feels alive and kinetic. By inverting expectations — rendering the “ink” in white and the “skin” in an electric blue — the vehicle achieves a striking, almost otherworldly presence that commands attention from every angle.
 
Vehicle signwriting design

With no existing artwork to rely on, this project became an exercise in interpretation and reinvention. Each tattoo was carefully redrawn, preserving the spirit of the originals while elevating them into a cohesive, large-scale visual narrative. The vehicle itself became the canvas — fully “inked,” yet unlike anything traditionally seen in tattoo culture.

Complexity

Execution demanded precision. Every element had to flow seamlessly across the vehicle’s contours — over door handles, across panel gaps, and around functional components like the door handles — without disrupting the visual continuity. The final result is a fully integrated wrap where each tattoo connects effortlessly, creating a unified, immersive piece.

This wasn’t just signwriting — it was storytelling in motion.