The Moving Canvas: Wrapping “Kings” Turn Vehicle Graphics Into Art

Vehicle wrap competitions have become popular elements of many industry events, and are drawing more and more entrants and spectators.

Wrapping materials manufacturers also host wrapping contests, and this fall, Avery Dennison has announced the winners of its "Wrap Like a King" (WLAK) competition. The breadth of entrants proves how popular wrapping has become: installers from 53 countries competed for thousands of dollars in prizes—and, as it turns out, great publicity and even new business. 

For the contest, vehicle graphics installers were invited to submit full-print or color-change wrap projects. A stipulation of the contest was that the projects needed to feature the Avery Dennison Supreme Wrapping Film portfolio. Wrap projects were photographed and/or recorded on video, submitted and evaluated by a panel of judges.

The WLAK challenge comprises several rounds. In September, the Regional Wrap Kings included:

• North America East: The “Nebula Graffiti GR” project - designed by CORSA Auto Design and wrapped by Empire Vinyl Co.
• North America South: The “Creature from the Wrap Lagoon” project - completed by the MetroWrapz team
• North America Central: The “Deathstroke McLaren 650s” project - designed by Eric Gosselin of ECD and completed by PG Nola
• North America Midwest: The “P57” project - completed by IVS Wraps
• North America West: The “Willys - Chrome Punisher” project - completed by Incognito Wraps
• Canada: The “Spiderghini” project - completed by Sapphire Creative
• Europe North: The “Printed Chrome Caracachews Wrap” project - completed by Venom Wraps
• Europe South: The “Lamborghini Aventador” project - completed by M-Wrapping
• Europe Eastern, MENA: The “BMW M135i / Artist” project - completed by WrapStyle s.r.o.
• Europe Central: The “Parrot in Flowers” project - completed by SIGNal Design GmbH

British Columbia, Canada’s Sapphire Creative was a Regional Wrap King with its “Spiderghini” project. (Image courtesy Avery Dennison.)

In early October, the Continental Wrap Kings were:

• North America South: The “Creature from the Wrap Lagoon” - MetroWrapz
• Europe: “BMW M135i/Artist” - WrapStyle s.r.o.
• North Asia: “The Wrap Like a King 2019 - SLS AMG” - Shanghai DC Town Auto Service Co., Ltd.
• Australia/New Zealand: “2014 Porsche 911 Turbo S TECHART GTstreet R” - Winguard Paint Protection Specialists
• South Africa: “Eric the Viking - Sharpline drift car wrap” - Sharpline Signs and Graphics

Sharpline Signs and Graphics, based in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, is a Continental Wrap King for its “Eric the Viking” wrap project. (Image courtesy Avery Dennison.)

The Global Wrap King was announced in early November at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas, a premier event for the auto industry. 

Here Comes the Judge

One of the judges for this year’s WLAK challenge was Justin Pate, founder of The Wrap Institute (https://wrapinstitute.com). The Wrap Institute provides a variety of educational resources for vehicle graphics installers, including a library of nearly 1,700 videos. Pate started wrapping vehicles as a freelance installer in New York City in 1996 and, in 2007, moved to Amsterdam. A year later, he launched his first instructional DVD and, in the early 2010s, starting holding wrapping workshops, ultimately founding The Wrap Institute in 2014 as a streaming video platform. It has grown substantially since. 

“I think The Wrap Institute has been a huge engine for creating volume and quality within the industry because we come out with a brand new video every day and we’re a neutral platform,” Pate said. “We’re always pushing the boundaries in terms of showing people what new techniques are out there and showing them better and faster or maybe different ways to approach something that is more profitable and time-efficient.” 

Pate started working with Avery Dennison in 2010 and created the company’s North American workshop and certification programs. 

He is often a judge of wrap contests, be they Avery Dennison’s or another’s. The judging criteria are a mix of technique and creativity. 

“In a [live] wrap contest, it’s much more up-close and personal,” he said. “I want to see how they clean the car and things like that. I’m looking to see if they’re cutting corners, if they’re rushing. I’m looking for how they problem-solve, because things always go wrong. Then obviously you want to see if they cut the car or if the alignment is good. Some people skip the basic stuff; if they want to go fast, they forget they have to install the graphic straight and straight’s more important than fast. Then some people get too caught up in cleaning and they don’t get to the wrapping part.”

The WLAK contest required a different approach since it was based on pictures and video. For Pate, creativity played a central role in his judging criteria. 

“What I’m looking for personally is someone who is pushing the bounds in terms of creativity,” he said. “If they just do one color, I’m just kind of like, ‘Well, it’s a good install, but it doesn’t do much in terms of pushing materials and design and stuff like that.’ So you’re looking for someone who can really come up with a creative concept, but then also execute in terms of installing.”

Galaxy Quest

The North America East Regional Winner was a tag-team effort by CORSA Auto Design and Empire Vinyl Co. CORSA is an auto wrap design studio, co-founded by Adyan Rahmen about a year ago. CORSA handles the design and Empire Vinyl does the output.

“Shops like Empire Vinyl or a client will come to us and give us an idea for a design,” Rahmen said, “and we basically bring it to life. What we like to do is take a classic idea and either meld it with another idea and put our own spin on it, or just bring something fresh to the game. The possibilities are endless; there are so many different ways to design a car, but we always want to introduce something that’s never been seen before.”

“Nebula Graffiti GR,” designed by CORSA Auto Design and printed and installed by Empire Vinyl, was a Regional Winner in the Avery Dennison Wrap Like a King challenge. (Image courtesy CORSA Auto Design.)

Empire Vinyl President Calvin Ibanez used his own car for the wrapping challenge. (Image courtesy CORSA Auto Design.)

Rahmen got into wrapping via his lifelong love of cars. About two and half years ago, he had the opportunity to wrap a black BMW GT—which doesn’t have the best aesthetic reputation amongst car buffs—and wanted to “take it and make it something unique,” he said.

“I mocked something up and I took it to the shop I was working with and brought it to life. People absolutely loved it. They just were shocked at how a GT could completely change its appearance from something rather ugly into something that actually won an award. Some friends of mine said I needed to start designing for other cars and one buddy of mine wanted me to design his I8. So I took that on as a challenge and people loved it. Soon after, CORSA was formed.”

It’s a two person team at the moment—Rahmen and his mother, who has a long background in art. Rahmen himself is actually still in school studying statistics and quantitative modeling which, he says “is as far away as you can get from graphic design.” But, he added, “cars and art are things I’ve always been interested in since I was young and at first it started as a hobby, but now it's become an actual business.” 

CORSA Auto Design founder Adyan Rahmen has been in love with cars since he was a small child. (Image courtesy CORSA Auto Design.)

CORSA works very closely with Deer Park, N.Y.’s Empire Vinyl, a relationship that began with a chance meeting between Rahmen and Calvin Ibanez, Empire’s founder and president, at a trade show. Ibanez got into wrapping when he had his own car—a 2007 Dodge Charger—wrapped and was less than thrilled with the results.

“I got to thinking that maybe I could try and do this,” Ibanez said. “So I ended up ordering a roll of wrap to wrap the car myself to see if I could do it.”

The result of the experiment was encouraging enough to lead Ibanez to drop out of school and concentrate on developing his wrapping business.

“I haven’t regretted it since,” he said.

With the support of his friends, he began wrapping their cars to build up a portfolio and an expertise.

“At that point, it was just color changes,” he said. “It wasn’t anything too crazy. Then about a year or two ago, we started getting more into unique looks.” 

That led to the project for the WLAK challenge.

“One day, I stopped by a shop to discuss some other cars and Calvin saw some projects we were working on,” Rahmen said. “He said, ‘Wow, these things are really wild. I think it’s time to go a little wild with our car.’ And we knew about Wrap Like a King and we said this is a perfect reason to do something really ‘wow.’”

The hard part was coming up with a compelling theme.

“Something that I thought was very cool is just space,” he said. “When you see these amazing photos that NASA has taken of space—galaxies and all of these different nebulas—it’s really artwork itself, but it’s real-life.”

But it needed something else.

“Both of us are within a reasonable distance of New York City, and so we see all these examples of modern art: graffiti. And I thought those are two very cool themes, and nobody has ever put them together. So when I talked to Calvin about it, he loved the idea.” 

And thus was born “Nebula Graffiti GR.”

Vehicle graphics have evolved from simple commercial graphics, to basic color changes, to “rolling artwork.” (Image courtesy CORSA Auto Design.)

Creature Comfort

It takes a lot of effort and resources to enter a wrapping contest. Obviously, installers see value in participating, but does it help these businesses get more work? 

“It does lend itself to new business,” said Carlos Alverio, general manager of Miami’s MetroWrapz. “Having it all on social media really helps showcase what companies can do and what their capabilities are.”

MetroWrapz won the North America Continental round of the WLAK challenge with its “Creature from the Wrap Lagoon” project. 

In 2010, MetroWrapz as a business entity was spun out of Metro Signs (founded 1988); before that, it was the wrapping department of Metro Signs.

“It wasn't the caliber that it is now back when we started,” Alverio said. “We were doing a lot of commercial wraps, not a lot of color change. It was just myself wrapping, and we slowly started to build the team from there.” 

Like a lot of vehicle wrappers, Alverio got into wrapping by accident—28 years ago.

“It started as summer work,” he said. “It was a van for a local rapper. I was essentially just given a vehicle and two days to get it done. Those were the only instructions. I had never wrapped before in my life and it took me the full two days because I didn’t know what I was doing. But I figured it out.”

He subsequently went through various certification programs, including those offered by Avery Dennison, 3M and Orafol, among others, to further expand his knowledge base. For the past five years, MetroWrapz has hosted a class conducted by Justin Pate.

“It’s always good to get a refresher course when he comes through,” Alverio said. “It’s been an experience. It’s fun, but there is a lot more training that can be acquired.” 

MetroWrapz is looking to repeat its success—they won last year’s Wrap Like a King contest—and the M.O. for this year’s project was to exceed what they had done. This led to “The Creature from the Wrap Lagoon.”

“The owner of the company has always been a fan of 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon,'” Alverio said. “He wanted to do something to challenge us, so he came up with this concept, and we talked about it early on and we had a plan in place.”

At almost the last minute, with the submission deadline looming, they decided to change the base material they were going to use.

“We switched to chrome knowing how difficult that’s going to be because it's a bigger challenge as chrome is a lot more difficult to install.”

The creature’s scales were going to be embossed, and chrome shows off the 3D effect and “pops” better than other materials. 

The actual car that was used for the contest was supplied by a customer and friend of the company.

“He saw the car that we did last year, and said ‘If you guys want to do anything, feel free, you have access to my car,’” Alverio said. “And we took him up on it.”

The “creature” theme even extended to other parts of the car. “Naturally the face is on the front of the car, so underneath the hood would be the brain,” Averio said. “On the top, which is the body, is where the engine is, which is what’s running this whole thing, we wrapped the entire engine bay with an image of a heart. And then, the door jambs and all the interior pieces in the car, we wrapped as muscle fiber. We had everything thought out.”

MetroWrapz’s Creature from the Black Lagoon-inspired wrap takes the theme even into the interior and under the hood. (Image courtesy Avery Dennison.)

Vehicle Graphics Keep Driving Forward

“When I first started wrapping in 1996, it was a job for Time Warner and it was on 3M’s electrostatic printer and that printer cost, I think, close to $750,000,” Pate said. “I’m at Mutoh right now teaching a workshop and a comparable printer to that is around $14,000. Technology has changed and printers have come down dramatically in price, which has made wraps more affordable to the masses. And the printer quality is awesome today.”

Wrapping has evolved from commercial fleet graphics, to color changes, to now highly creative automotive imagery. The technology has given wrap designers seemingly unlimited freedom to create virtually any kind of image.

“It’s evolved a lot over the past four or five years to where you see a lot of different shops connecting with designers like CORSA to do these kinds of standout cars, and not just wrapping a car to change it from red to black,” Rahmen said. “Artists like myself now look at cars as canvases, where they’re like rolling artwork. They’re something like Calvin’s Mustang where it’s a car that no matter where it goes, whether you’re a car person or not, it’s going to blow your mind because it’s combining a nebula within kind of a galaxy artwork, and then mixing that together with New York City street art. People just love the fact that you can take these cars and make them truly one-of-a-kind with what essentially is a big sticker.”

And car dealerships are starting to recognize the added value of vehicle graphics.

“Dealerships are now offering graphics packages,” Alverio said.

MetroWrapz works with dealerships that offer a graphics package as part of a new car purchase.

“They’ll send it to us, we’ll wrap it, and we’ll bring it back to them.”

There is no end of new developments, new materials, new printers and new techniques that appear seemingly daily. Keeping up with it all can be a challenge—but the wrap industry is very supportive.

“The beautiful thing about the wrap world is everybody’s in it to kind of help each other,” Rahmen said. “It is a competitive industry, but it’s a friendly competitive industry. What I really appreciate about the wrap industry is that everybody's here to help each other and help each other grow. 

“At the end of the day, it’s another form of art and we all just enjoy seeing this art come to life.”