- TSCL #18922
- info@sabersignsolutions.com
- 512-402-8800
- TSCL #18922
- 512-402-8800
Commercial vehicle wraps are a great way to showcase your business and its offerings while your vehicles are out on the roads – they act as not only a moving advertisement, but also as a way to showcase your professionalism and build brand recognition.
Professional commercial sign companies like Saber Sign Solutions keep many things in mind when designing the perfect wrap: clear and consistent branding, simplicity of design, and simplicity of content. Let’s explore how we think about those things, and how we ensure that our commercial vehicle wraps look great, while also using words, images, and patterns appropriately.
Clear, consistent branding and simplicity of imagery and messaging on this moving billboard (your vehicle) will capture the greatest attention and recognition of your messaging.
Remember, your audience may only be looking at the content on your vehicle for a few seconds at a time – so make your branding memorable and reflective of your offering and personality.
When it comes to what information to include on your commercial wrap, your primary focus and priorities should be your logo, tagline, services, and phone number. When we work with Austin area businesses on their commercial wrap designs, we typically advise that they:
A general consideration is that the more content there is to read on the vehicle, the smaller the print will be, and the less likely people are to read it or see it clearly.
Since it’s likely that not all of the vehicles in your fleet are of the same make and model, it’s important to create a design that is as repeatable as possible across multiple trucks or vehicles in your business. By letting Saber Sign Solutions know how many vehicles are in your fleet and what type, we can more easily create this type of repeatable design.
This creates better brand recognition across your fleet and avoids unnecessary re-design each time you introduce a different vehicle type. See our galleries of photos for examples of mixed-vehicle fleets.
Commercial wrap designs need to account for curves at the top of the car, from the side up to the roof, and around the corners of a car. Full or partial wraps need to include enough bleed to extend beyond the two-dimensional template boundaries to accommodate these curves. Designs on the edges of the side of a vehicle need to align with the front or rear view of the vehicle.
Even with the correct template for your vehicle, there may still be differences that can impact how your wrap looks. For example, your vehicle may have an additional piece of trim along the side or an emblem that is not in the template.
By sending us reference photos of your vehicle or vehicles while we are in the design phase, you can avoid putting critical graphic content in a spot that may be covered by vehicle trim, an emblem or other obstacles.
Even with a full wrap of a commercial vehicle, there will be areas on the vehicle where the original paint color will be seen. During the design process, we pay attention to this, so that it looks like an intentional choice. Examples are door handles, door hinges, and other small parts of the vehicle.
Photos are more likely to quickly become dated, limit the space we have available for other crucial branding elements, and create challenges if you are looking to include content on top of the photo.
If you are set on using a photo, we make sure to create enough contrast between the photo and any words or graphics that will go on top of it. We also check that any photo to be used on the vehicle is high enough resolution to show up well when enlarged to the necessary size.
We’re happy to talk you through our process for carefully selecting photos during our consultation.
Gradients, especially those that are used as a background pattern that span across the vehicle or around corners will be very difficult to work with. This is because gradients are difficult to precisely match up where two sheets of wrap material come together on the vehicle.
It’s important to be mindful when using patterns or images, particularly those that will continue around the corners of the vehicle. Given the three-dimensional nature of vehicles, it will be extremely difficult to match up different sections of printed graphics as we marry them together around the corners between the sides and the back.
This is why we typically don’t include patterns, gradients, photos, images or anything other than solid colors on the corners or edges of the vehicle. The edges and corners of your three-dimensional vehicle are not likely to line up with the pattern, photo or image, even when the design on a two-dimensional mockup may look great.
The below example demonstrates where the design for the side and the design for the rear don’t match or line up where they come together on the corner of the vehicle.
If you are set on using photos or images, be sure that they are at the appropriate resolution. Saber Sign Solutions recommends a resolution of at least 72 dpi when sized to full-scale. This is because a photo that appears really sharp and clear at 4”x5” may pixelate badly when resized to 20”x25” or to 40”x50”.
Finally, it’s important to provide lots of design bleed beyond vehicle outline boundaries. When designing in the template, Saber Sign Solutions extends the design beyond the edges of the vehicle outline, and uses the template as a clipping mask to allow the mockup to display correctly.
For example, while a mockup may look like this:
We would also want to include a larger graphic in the art file that extends beyond the boundaries of the vehicle template, like this:
Essentially, this allows us to use the template as a clipping mask so that the mockup only shows the design as it appears within the boundaries of the vehicle outline, while still having the larger graphic in the file for us to print and produce from.
Saber Sign Solutions is an Austin sign company with years of experience working with local businesses on creating a variety of vehicle wraps and graphics. We have created a seamless process that takes into account all of the nuances of designing the perfect commercial vehicle wrap.
See our galleries to learn more, or reach out to us to schedule your consultation today!
