Parking spots painted with cartoon characters are driving sales of a Chengdu City art firm

SpongeBob, Pikachu, and Doraemon have all been spotted recently in an underground parking garage in Chengdu City.

The cartoon characters have been painted onto personalized parking spots- a new trend taking the city by storm.

For about 230 US dollars, drivers can personalize their parking spot with a made-to-order painting. Cartoon characters are some of the most popular designs.

One painter, Zheng Xinyao, says she started painting parking spots because her job as a graphic designer did not pay as well.

"When I first graduated, I found a graphic design job, and could earn about 5,000 yuan (around 770 U.S. dollars) per month. After I started painting parking spots, I earned nearly 12,000 yuan (about 1,850 U.S. dollars) last month, as business was quite good during the Spring Festival," said Zheng.

Within about three hours, the outline of the character- “Chase” from the Paw Patrol series- is starting to take shape.

The client who commissioned the work stopped by to get an early peak.

"Several friends have already received the service. My kid loves the character, so I chose the pattern," said the owner of the parking space.

The customized parking spots are the brainchild of Hu Zhao, who quickly established a startup team after stumbling on the business opportunity.

Hu says the service is particularly popular with young adults.

"Our client group is mainly people that were born in the 1980s and 1990s or who are aged between 25 to 40. They're quite open-minded and willing to accept more new and personalized things. So far, we have decorated around 400 parking spaces, with an average price of about 1,800 yuan (about 227 U.S. dollars)," said Hu.