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EP# 335: Passion in Design: Creating Effective Visual Solutions with JH Design Unlimited

• Skip Mauney & John Hodgson • Episode 335

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Ever wondered how those eye-catching vehicle wraps transform ordinary cars into powerful marketing machines? Skip Mauney sits down with John Hodgson, owner-operator of JH Design Unlimited, to uncover the art and science behind effective commercial vehicle wrapping on the Treasure Coast.

A lifelong artist with formal training in industrial design, John shares his fascinating journey from yacht designer to branding specialist. His passionate approach combines creativity with meticulous technical standards—holding both 3M preferred and Avery certified status ensures his wraps don't just look great but last for years. What began as a graphic design shop in 2010 has evolved into a comprehensive branding powerhouse, with vehicle wraps becoming their signature offering.

The conversation reveals surprising insights about mobile advertising effectiveness. "You get on average 101 impressions per mile," John explains, making vehicle wraps arguably the most cost-effective marketing investment available to local businesses. But not all wraps are created equal. John emphasizes the critical importance of clean, strategic design that communicates instantly, warning that cluttered wraps fail regardless of how colorful or attention-grabbing they might be. His "less is more" philosophy and obsession with quality have built his reputation across Florida's Treasure Coast.

Beyond the technical aspects, John's personal story of honoring his late mother through excellence in his craft reveals the human connection driving his business philosophy. "Everything I do, I pour my heart and soul into," he shares, explaining why each design remains unique and custom-tailored to the specific business it represents.

Ready to transform your vehicle into a powerful marketing asset? Check out JH Design Unlimited's work on Instagram and Facebook, or contact them directly at 772-281-4964 to discuss how they can help your business stand out on the road.

Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monning.

Speaker 2:

Hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. I hope you're doing well today and I'm super excited because we've got a very special guest with us here in the studio. And I'm sure you'll just be as excited as I am to meet our guest, because today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, mr John Hodson, who is the owner operator of JH Design Unlimited. John, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3:

Thanks, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. We're thrilled to have you, like I said, very excited to learn all about you and your business. So, if you don't mind, why don't you kick us off by telling us about what you do All?

Speaker 3:

right? Well, basically we have a one-stop design shop and our focus is really on design, graphic design. But we do a variety, offer a variety of services. We do graphic design, we do custom vehicle wraps, we do printing. We do custom vehicle wraps, we do printing, we do custom apparel Pretty much. You know anything a business would need to help with their branding and cover all the bases.

Speaker 2:

Very good. So a wide plethora of things that you do there. So, John, how did you get into this business?

Speaker 3:

Well, it's a long story. So at the core of what the business is and who I am is art. So I'm an artist. I've been an artist my whole life and went to the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and got a degree in industrial design, which in short, is product design, and I've been in the design industry working professionally for 25 years. I started off doing product design and then yacht design locally here in Stewart Florida. That really helped, you know, kind of build a lot of the strong values that designers should have and the pressure and running a business, you know, as far as the demands of the industry and everything.

Speaker 3:

But back in 2010, I started GH Design, went out on my own and it started off really just as a graphic design kind of small business and I did a lot of freelance, a lot of design for companies, a lot of brand development, logo design and one day I got asked to design a vehicle wrap, probably about 10 years ago, and it went well. I got asked to do another one and then I decided to invest in brick and mortar and get a place and invest in the equipment and the knowledge to produce high quality vehicle wraps for businesses the knowledge to produce high quality vehicle wraps for businesses and essentially that's kind of what we're on the treasure coast now is uh is our wraps and uh it's. It's a very big part of what we do, of course we do, um you know, printing printed items like business cards, flyers, postcards and all that apparel.

Speaker 2:

Like I said, but the wraps really has become just a big deal for us and we love it. Well, I tell you, I was going to ask what are some myths or misconceptions in the design industry, but particularly with vehicle wraps I'm really interested in. You know, you would assume that that's pretty expensive. Is that the case?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know it's funny. I get asked how much does a wrap cost? Well, that's it's hard to answer that question because there's so many variables involved. You know, there's a lot of places that do wraps and some people specialize in color change wraps where basically you change the color of your car. Some people do commercial wraps. We do all the above, but really our niche, I feel, is commercial wraps. We do all the above, but really our niche, I feel, is commercial wraps, and the reason being is the design part of it. So there's some shops that do just install, there's some shops that just print wraps and there's some shops that provide you to spoon, feed them the art and all they do is print and install. We're kind of unique in the sense that we do everything and we do everything in-house, so we don't use subcontractors.

Speaker 3:

I design all the wraps, I print the wraps, we laminate the wraps, we install the wraps all in-house by our employees, and I myself am 3M preferred and Avery certified, which is really good to have those certifications to understand the fundamentals of wrapping successfully. But we are extremely obsessive about quality. So everything we do with wraps is done to the highest standard possible, all the way down to the material choice, to the, the way that the wrap is paneled and installed on a vehicle not cutting on vehicles, not, uh, just not cutting corners. You know we're obsessive about doing everything, uh, to the best that we can, and we've had the training and and the experience now with our team to where we're able to provide that to customers.

Speaker 3:

But going back to the original question, it's a long-winded answer, um, you get what you pay for, because you can get a thousand fifteen hundred dollar wrap with your vehicle sliced up and the wraps falling off two months later. Or you could spend a little bit more on a quality product that's going to last you five, six years and going to get you amazing results. And with wraps, especially for fleet and vehicles, they say you get on average 101 impressions per mile. And having a wrap designed successfully, effectively on the road for a business, there's no other ROI really in form of advertisement that comes close. It's just a driving billboard. And I've really spent a lot of time in my career trying to hone, coming up with designs that are effective, not just pretty, but that work, and for me that's what I love to do. I install wraps too, but I have a team that does it for me and they're great. But I need to be behind the computer designing it, and that's really where my passion lies as an artist.

Speaker 2:

Very cool, so you produce and install.

Speaker 3:

Everything, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Everything start to finish, start to finish the whole process. And you know we will take a company that has a logo. I'll rebrand them or keep their branding as is, if they're happy. Or we'll take a startup, small local business here in the Treasure Coast and I'll develop the branding, their logo, then, from there, develop a cohesive line of products that reflect that branding, and vehicle wraps being one of them.

Speaker 3:

And that's, that's a fun process because you get to develop branding, you know a logo and then figure out OK, well, now I got to figure out how that translates into into a fleet. How does that translate across all your collateral, like business cards and marketing material? At the end of the day, you have you, you have this family of product that just represents this brand. And it's a fun journey to do, exciting, and I love the reactions that we get and I love making people happy and I love to see the success that all this brings to the businesses because, at the end of the day, that's what I'm trying to do is help bring attention to these businesses by making them look the best they can be.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, very interesting. You mentioned, you said a hundred, and what? 110 impressions per mile.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, they say 101 impressions per mile. That was a statistic done a while ago, but the yeah, it's. It's a lot of eyes on the wraps. It's interesting.

Speaker 2:

I had a company spam me, email me, about not wrapping a vehicle but actually just putting a sticker on your back window, and they pay you to put a sticker to promote whatever product it is that they have. So I can't imagine having your whole car wrapped gets a lot of attention.

Speaker 3:

And we do just that too. We do stickers, decals, we'll do rear window wraps and stuff for cars. At the end of the day, we're not an all-or-nothing kind of company. So if your budget is such that you can only afford to do decals or you just want a more minimal approach, we're more than happy to do that and we do literally hundreds of those installs and it's just really what your goals are and the objective of it. You know we, like I said, we do as much or as little as you want and how far you want to go with it.

Speaker 3:

But yeah, I mean having a full wrap. Really it just screams for your attention. I mean having a full wrap. Really it just screams for your attention. But it's also very important that it's designed effectively, because I have seen wraps out there, fully wrapped vehicles, that they drive by and you know after observing it, you don't know who they are or what they do, and it's just because they're too cluttered they're not designed right. There's too many things going on, maybe things clashing, too many colors, and it's a less is more approach and it's something that, once again, that I've spent a lot of time really trying to perfect. That you know. And the other thing is no two wraps are alike, so I never copy a design. Everything is custom, one off, one off. And uh, you know, if I create a look for that person, that is their look very cool, very cool.

Speaker 2:

Well, john, else how to work. If there is time outside of work, what do you do for fun? Well unfortunately as of late.

Speaker 3:

There hasn't been any time. Uh, you know we're blessed to be as busy as we are and it's been crazy. But I love fishing, I love boating and I do have a bass boat and ironically we do wrap several pro fishermen's boat every year and I love bass fishing but I have not had it out in a while because I've been working so much. But yeah, I'd say fishing and being outdoors is what I'm pretty passionate about.

Speaker 2:

Man of my own heart. I'm a serious fisherman too. Although I like to trout fish, fly fish. I really like to fly fish.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I fly fish in cold water too. I love fly fishing.

Speaker 2:

Oh wow, Do you do bone fishing?

Speaker 3:

Snook mostly, and trout locally here on the Treasure Coast. I've gone out and done it. I've got a nine weight, you know fly rod set up and I just, I love the hands-on with a fly rod.

Speaker 2:

Very nice, very nice. Well, let's switch gears for just a second. Can you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you've overcome, either professionally or personally, and how it made you stronger on the other side?

Speaker 3:

Well, there's been a lot, so much stuff. My my ex boss when I did work in the yacht design industry. He was a really he's kind of like an Einstein and he was a designer, a yacht designer and he was very passionate about what he did and he had high demands and it was a high, high pace, high pressure work environment and I loved it because it helped build me into build the work ethic that I have that translated into my business. And when my mom passed away, that was another big life change for me because that was my best friend, I was very close with my mother and that was basically a pivotal moment where I basically really focused on improving myself overall in design and my career was a big deal because I think I started to you know, show her, you know, hey, I can do this, I'm going to do this and I'm going to make you proud kind of a deal.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, Absolutely, and I'm sure she's looking down right now Very proud of you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, hope so.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Well, if, if, john, if you could think of one thing that you'd like our listeners to remember about JH Designs Unlimited, what would that be?

Speaker 3:

uh, well, that we're just very passionate. Uh, we're a passionate design company that really does care about, um, local businesses here and, uh, we really do take pride in what we do. I'm not just doing this, you know, for a buck. I mean, this is everything I do, I pour my heart and soul into and I just I love working with people and helping them look their best. So awesome.

Speaker 2:

Well, when you're passionate about something it shows in your work, for sure yes absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 3:

Well, for those of us who might be interested in wrapping a vehicle, doing a design, corporate gifts sort of thing or promotional items, how can they learn more? Well, you can visit our website. It's wwwjhdesign. We're very active on Instagram and Facebook, so you can see a lot of the work that we're dishing out actively on our social media. And then our phone number is 772-281-4964. Basically, email or call us is really the best way to get in touch with us, and but yeah, we, we try to show off what we're doing all the time on social media and everything. So, very cool.

Speaker 2:

And that number again was seven, seven, two, two, yep.

Speaker 3:

Two eight one four, nine, six, four, very good.

Speaker 2:

Very good, all right. Well, john, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with me and our listeners and wish you and your family and JH Design Unlimited all the best moving forward. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. All right, thank you, and maybe we can have you back sometime.

Speaker 3:

Yes, sir, all right, Take care.

Speaker 1:

You too. Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnptry-citiescom. That's gnptry-citiescom, or call 423-719-5873.