Roland and Honda make visitors smile with portrait keyrings

Visitors to Honda's showroom in Tokyo left with a special gift to make them smile: unique keychains, personalised by illustrator Chihiro and decorated there and then on a Roland benchtop UV printer laser foil decorator. 

The event at the Honda Welcome Plaza in Aoyama, Tokyo featured a Honda N-VAN minivan that had been customised with a design by Chihiro, an artist and illustrator with over 120,000 followers on Instagram.

The custom van loaded with UV printers and other tools is displayed at various locations as a workshop or pop-up booth so visitors can create their very own accessories.

Honda Welcome Plaza AOYAMA

Her design was the winner of Honda's #NVAN_Dream contest at January's Tokyo Auto Salon 2019, which invited people to submit 'the designs of their dreams'.

The vehicle wrap was printed with the help of Kanbanman.com using Roland inkjet printers.

Alongside Chihiro's N-VAN ART STAND concept was another Honda N-VAN minivan, specially converted to help visitors at a number of events get creative and have fun with digital technology.

The vehicle wrap design for this van came from the members of the Makers' Base shared factory – a regular collaborator with Roland – and printed with the help of Kanbanman.com using Roland wide format inkjet printers.

Chihiro continues her passion with the arts while working and raising her children. Her mobile N-VAN ART STAND concept vehicle (left) and the N-VAN designed by Roland DG (right) were on display at the plaza.

This custom Roland van is packed with innovations including a Roland VersaUV LEF-12i compact UV printing system, which was put to work at the Honda Welcome Plaza event.

Visitors were invited to have their pictures taken in a photo booth or even have their portraits drawn by artist Chihiro herself using digital drawing tools.

Illustrator Chihiro (left) chats with visitors while drawing their portraits.

Visitors designed their keychain using a tablet to position their portraits or photos over an illustration of their selected model.

Next, guests could choose a car-themed design from a selection of keychains, before their illustrated likenesses were printed onto the keychains directly on the VersaUV – a printer compatible with an incredible range of materials and 3D products.

Visitors selected their favorite from three available models and colours and entered text for the license plate to customise their keychain.

Finally, each car-shaped keychain's number plate was customised with text transferred using a Roland LD-80 laser foil decorator, an easy-to-use system for enhancing items with metallic foils.

One-of-a-kind car-shaped key chains printed with illustrated portraits or facial photos.

Over 200 parents and children, friends and creative individuals all got involved in the design process over the two-day event, and took home a range of unique keychain designs: whole families travelling in minivans, couples riding in sports cars, and much more.

Families took home one-of-a-kind gifts

The Roland van was designed to help people to get creative and have fun

The keychains were a creative souvenir from an inspirational day

"This was the first time I printed something like this out myself. It was great fun!" said one visitor – with other guests looking forward to showing their friends their personal keychains.

Designs created by visitors were printed directly onto keychains using the Roland VersaUV LEF-12i UV printer.

Chihiro was also impressed by Roland's imaging systems and how artists can use them to bring their work to life.

Selected text was transferred onto the key chain license plate using the LD-80 laser foil decorator.

"I am so excited to be able to work with Roland DG on this event," she said. "I never really had the opportunity to print out digital versions of my own illustrations previously, so I was amazed at how quick and clear they were printed. Roland DG's printers are ideal for this type of event."

Makers' Base COO Junpei Matsuda also took part

The Makers' Base van was designed with this concept in mind, as the organisation's COO Junpei Matsuda explained: "We focused especially on the fixtures so that the vehicle can be rolled out anywhere quickly as a workshop or a pop-up booth. The outside of the vehicle displays images that illustrate how Roland DG's digital tools were used to transform ideas into the actual vehicle you see here."

With more events planned for the blue and white Roland van across Japan, more people are set to see their designs come to life – and to make them smile. Be inspired by the video of the Aoyama event: 

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Discover Roland’s popular range of benchtop UV VersaUV LEF printers and Metaza LD-80 laser foil decorators and how they can help you attract visitors to your next event.