Fancy seeing your artwork on a Cornwall bus stop?

Every Transport for Cornwall stop across the county carries the same red and white signage, right down to the little bus icon on the pole. For a handful of designers, that is about to change.

Two blank canvases up for grabs

To mark Catch the Bus Month, Transport for Cornwall is inviting residents to get creative through two competitions: Design Your Bus Stop and Design Your Bus Wrap. One puts an entrant’s artwork onto the glass panel of a local shelter. The other puts it across the exterior of a double decker bus. Both are a chance to see a piece of home-grown work displayed on the county’s public transport network for the community to enjoy.

Transport for Cornwall says the competitions are a chance to showcase local talent, share ideas, and help make bus travel more vibrant and welcoming, and the invitation is open to students, artists, designers and anyone else with a good idea.

The five themes to choose from

Every design has to be built around one of five set themes: Local Community Interests, The Environment, Public Transport, Celebrating Bus Drivers, or Your Individual Bus Journey. Whichever theme is picked, the design cannot advertise, depict or include any specific venues, attractions, businesses, organisations or trademarks.

How to enter, and the deadline

The competition is open to Cornwall residents of all ages. Anyone under 18 needs permission from a parent or guardian before entering. Entries go through the online submission form and need two things: the design itself, submitted as a PDF, JPG, JPEG, GIF, BMP or PNG up to 200MB, and a short paragraph explaining the design and the inspiration behind it, which the judging panel will use to understand the thinking behind each entry.

Entries are open now, and the deadline for submissions is midnight on 30 September 2026. Full details and the entry form are available on the Let’s Talk Cornwall competition page.

The small print before you start sketching

Shelter designs are only installed onto glass panels, so artwork is likely to be produced on a transparent film that keeps the inside of the stop visible. Designs for a bus exterior cannot cover any of the windows, and need to be built from one base colour (not black) plus up to three additional colours. Every design should be scaled and sized for the actual shelter or vehicle it is destined for, and suitable for display in a public space where it needs to read clearly from a distance.

Cornwall Council has reserved the right to professionally enhance and amend any chosen design so it meets the standards needed for display on street furniture or a vehicle exterior. A judging panel will select the winning designs, and winners will be notified by email.

📷Image: Transport for Cornwall