Rules of the Road: Vehicle Graphics Dos and Don’ts

Vehicle graphics, sometimes called vehicle wraps, have become one of the fastest growing specialty graphics applications. Whether you’re adding graphics to a real estate agent’s company car, adding special effects or a color change to someone’s Mercedes, or wrapping a fleet of corporate vehicles, the same basic rules, tips, and strategies apply. Here are some common and not-so-common do’s and don’ts.

Do: Set Customer Expectations

Getting yourself and the customer on the same page vis-à-vis the final wrap starts with a thorough examination of the vehicle, one that can be even more detailed than when buying the car. “The most important thing is setting a customer’s expectations,” said Matt Richart, co-owner of Louisville, Ky.’s Digital EFX Wraps. Founded 2004, Digital EFX wraps specializes in all aspects of vehicle wrapping, and Richart and his partner, Dallas Fowler, also train vehicle wrappers nationwide, often through Roland Academy. Last December, Richart conducted a Roland Webinar called “14 Steps to a Perfect Wrap.” Those expectations, said Richart, include “whether it’s going to be a full wrap or a partial wrap, why we would do a partial wrap, what can be wrapped and what can’t be wrapped, what are the problematic areas of a vehicle, and how we’re going to attack those.”

A part of setting customer expectations can involve saying “no.” So:

Don’t: Be a Hero

Don’t be afraid to say “no” to a job. Not every vehicle can be wrapped; if someone brings in a 20-year-old beater car, riddled with rust holes and Bondo, a really bad paint job, or Clear-Coat issues, depending on how thoroughly the customer wants the car wrapped, there may be a plethora of what wrappers call “problem areas.” “You may have problems installing it, you definitely may have problems when it comes time for the wrap to be removed,” said Richart. “Be honest with the client and let them know that a vehicle is not an ideal candidate to be wrapped. That honesty creates trust.”

A bad wrap is not just bad for a particular client, but for your company. Every time you wrap a car, it’s a sales tool for your business—it’s common practice you add a “wrap credit” to a vehicle graphic—and if a wrap starts peeling or detaching from the vehicle out on the road because the car was a bad wrap candidate, it’s bad advertising for you.

Do: Have the Customer Visit Your Shop

Your own shop can be your best advertising. Having the customer come in to get a job estimate may seem obvious, but many potential customers would rather the wrapper come out their location. It might seem six of one, half dozen of another, but there are advantages to having the customer visit your shop.

“If you come to my facility, you meet me, you meet my sales staff, you see the printers printing,” said Richart. “I walk my clients through the shop so they can see the work that’s going on. It allows us to really introduce ourselves and our services. We have an almost 85-percent closing rate when they come to our facility.” In contrast, he added, when he goes out to the client’s site to do a vehicle evaluation and measurement, “I have a 40- to 50-percent closing rate. If there’s more than one company showing up to measure a vehicle, there’s nothing to differentiate me from my competitor other than the estimate.” This is how a lot of vehicle wrappers end up competing solely on price.

Speaking of which:

Don’t: Underquote

Vehicle wrapping is a very materials- and labor-intensive process, so it’s easy to quote prices below what’s profitable. So take a good look at your costs and your prices and make sure you’re not operating at a loss.

One way may be to go after commercial rather than “private” work. “Eighty percent of our business is commercial work,” said Richart. “The other 20 percent is a Mercedes Benz’s color change, wrapping somebody’s boat, or doing a golf cart or Jet Ski. For a while, we did those kinds of jobs all the time and we were busy, but it just wasn’t profitable.”

There can be other issues with private vs. commercial wraps, as well.

“Some fleet jobs can be more short-term and, depending on the customer’s expectations, there may be room for short cuts to reduce costs and maintain the client’s budget while still achieving the expected result,” said David Conrad, Director of Sales and Marketing for Mutoh America. “High-end vehicle wraps such as exotic cars are often met with more meticulous demands and high expectations for fit and finish. Typically, these types of installations leave zero room for short cuts.”

Fleet graphics—such as all of, say, a telecom company’s service vans—can be a good source of repeat work, as these types of graphics can be changed over on a regular basis, especially as companies often revise their branding.

Ultimately, though: “Do not underquote just to get a job,” advised Conrad.

Do: Insure Yourself

For most print businesses, insurance policies are usually limited to replacing equipment and other materials in the case of fire, theft, or other sources of damage to or loss of property. However, if you wrap vehicles on-site, you’re responsible for other people’s property. So having the proper insurance is vital, if for no other reason than your own peace of mind. “At one point last year, we had over $1.9 million worth of vehicles [at our facility],” said Richart. So he doesn’t skimp on insurance. “We have liability insurance, garage keepers insurance, and an umbrella policy on our entire building, so if the shop burns down, not only are my clients’ vehicles covered, but all my equipment is covered, too.” It’s not just catastrophic events, but things like minor vehicle damage or scratching paint can happen during installation.

A lot of dos and don’ts are business-related, but there are some production-specific strategies. It all starts with the design.

Don’t: Go Design Crazy

A vehicle wrap is essentially a moving advertisement, so it’s important to think about the context in which that ad is going to be seen: tooling down the highway at 70 mph. Even on surface streets, they’re still moving at a decent clip with maybe a couple minutes at a traffic light. So when it comes to vehicle graphic design, less is more.

“Our first three or four years, our designs were so crazy and out there that they got your attention, but you couldn’t read anything on them,” admitted Richart. “After a while, we made things more legible.” There are three vital pieces of information a commercial vehicle graphic has to communicate clearly: who they are, what they do, and how to contact them. Once Digital EFX Wraps simplified their designs, Richart said, “our clients were getting more sales and return on investment on their wraps and, in turn, they wrapped more vehicles with us.”

Even when vehicles are parked and graphics can be read at leisure, no one is going to spend more than a minute or two trying to grok the graphics. So avoid paragraphs of text, multiple phone numbers, epic URLs, or overly busy designs that fail to communicate the message in less than a few seconds. If the client is bringing you their design and you know it’s not going to be effective, don’t be afraid to tell them.

There are also technical best practices when it comes to design. “The designer has to plan so that the wrap exactly fits the vehicle and that panels line up where they’re supposed to and not fall under door handles,” said Marcio Oliveira, Tech Service, 3M Commercial Solutions Division. It takes some advance planning to not only ensure that panels and seams line up where they should, but also that design elements fall where they should. “There’s nothing worse than having a phone number cut off because of a door handle or going through a window,” said Oliveira. “Dry fitting the panels with magnets and tape will allow you to see where all of the text, wording, and photos fit on the vehicle. A little bit more time spent in in the design and dry-fit stages could save the project.”

“Many designers prefer to design and print in vectors for the cleanest output and sharpest lines on the graphics being used,” said Conrad. “Also, try to avoid clipping masks whenever possible as that can cause problems with the RIP software. Full-size graphics at 72 dpi are acceptable as long as it’s actual size and derived from a high-resolution image. And 72-dpi full size graphics load faster, edit quicker, and RIP faster. Although 300-dpi images may have better quality, they take more time to load.” Vehicle graphics aren’t intended to be viewed up close, so when seen from a distance a lower-res image may be perfectly acceptable.

Do: Measure Twice, Cut Once

The old rule of thumb for carpenters also applies with vehicle graphics: measure carefully. There is software that can get you started. Pro Vehicle Outlines (provehicleoutlines.com) is a design program that contains templates for thousands of North American vehicle makes and models. While a program like Pro Vehicle Outlines is a good place to start, but even the same make and model can vary slightly from car to car. And some models, like the Ford Transits that are common delivery vehicles, come in a wide range of configurations. “We use the digital program to get an idea of the square footage, but I always like to photograph the vehicle so it matches the template that we have,” said Richart. Then there are vehicles for which there is no template, like conversion vans, so the wrapper has to create his or her own templates.

When it comes to making measurements, you can’t be too detailed, as it will affect every other aspect of the wrapping process—and reprinting a graphic because of an inaccurate measurement is a waste of money and materials.

Prepping the surface is also important. “3M recommends a general detergent and water wash of the vehicle prior to installation,” said Oliveira. “This process should be done the day before to allow the water to evaporate around the panel seams. Final cleaning will always be done using a mixture of 70 percent isopropyl alcohol and 30 percent water.”

Don’t: Overlook Small Details

Vehicle wrapping can involve removing mirrors, wipers, and other exterior accessories which then need to be put back on when the job is done. It can be very easy for installers to put wipers back on upside down (or not securely so they fly off when they’re turned on), forget to cut a hole in the graphic for the gas tank, or overlook any of a hundred other little details. So it can often be a good idea to have a second pair of eyes go over a completely wrapped vehicle to ensure that everything has been put back on correctly. Draw up a comprehensive checklist of all these little items and have a second employee double-check them.

“What separates good installers from great installers is all in the details,” said Oliveira.

And, ultimately:

Do: Know Your Materials

Know intimately the substrate you are using to wrap to ensure the best installation with least chance for failures. (Many substrate manufacturers have certification courses for wrappers to learn all the fine points of a material. 3M for example offers Advanced Installer Training, and other substrate manufacturers have similar training programs. And equipment manufacturers like Roland offer wrapping workshops.)

“Make sure you know what products you are using during the install,” said Oliveira. “If you are using calendered vinyls, you need to know the limitations about how much it will stretch and shrink back. If you are using cast vinyl films, know that there are different films that stretch at different maximum levels.” And there are always new materials appearing on the market. “Films have become sophisticated to the point that they don’t require an overlaminate,” said Oliveira. “3M Wrap Film Series 1080 is a great example as it already comes ‘dual cast’ with the overlaminated protection built in, meaning the 3M Wrap Film Series 1080 is ready to install right out of the box.”

At the same time, advised Conrad, it all comes back to managing customer expectations. “Understand the customer’s expectations and manage time, materials, and labor accordingly,” he said. “Know the short cuts but know when you can use them. Being up front and honest with the customer to set proper expectations will result in happy customers, referrals and repeat business.”