Sealing Tape

When wrapping a vehicle one of the first effects that will happen is the edges of your vinyl coming up. When working with edges most installers will wrap the vinyl behind the panel they are working on and stick it on the back side. This is good because it prevents your edges from taking to much wind and pulling your edges up. Even though this helps it does not prevent it completely  some specialist say using a primer beforehand will help with the stick. Although this is an effective solution, using sealing tape is the most effective and simple way to make sure that your edges don't pull up. It helps seal and protect all edges of the wrap including wheel wells, the hood, trunk, and doors.The tape is clear which makes it invisible to the eye and also extends the life of your wrap. Make sure that your installers are using this tape so you get your full money's worth from your wrap!

   

Vehicle Preperation

When wrapping anything, having a clean substrate is the most important part. Every vehicle should be prepared as followed: Wash 24 hours in advance, 70% Isopropyl Alcohol the entire car, use denatured alcohol for tougher areas, Xylene on the bumper and rocker panels. 3M Prep Solvent-70 should be applied everywhere vinyl goes, and a final wash with the 70% Isopropyl Alcohol. Doing these simple steps is the best way to insure that your vinyl wrap will stick and stay applied for the longest amount of time.

Intermediate vs High Performance Vinyl

Intermediate vinyls have improved a lot since they first got introduced in the 1980's. Now most intermediates are glossier and last longer, but by no means have they replaced high performance vinyls. High performance vinyls continue to be sold a lot more because they are more comfortable to uneven surfaces, they shrink less and they don't fade as fast. Also, there are usually a lot more colors available in high performance vinyls because the manufacturer can run smaller batches of cast high performance vinyls vs calendared intermediate vinyls. If you want a high quality sign with the longest vinyl life possible it is important to use a high performance vinyl instead of intermediate

Acid Dew

Acid dew comes from pollution mixing in with dew drops and becoming increasingly acidic with the more sunlight that hits it. This problem seems to be coming more common especially in warmer climate areas. 3M has come out with a new product to prevent damage to your vehicle wraps, 8528 laminate will reduce harmful effects of UV light and acid dew. This new lamination was designed specifically to guard against spotting and discoloration caused bu UV light damage and acid dew. Another way to prevent from this sort of damage is to maintain washing and polishing your vehicle. There are certain chemicals that should not be used on a vehicle wrap, doing so could cause discoloration, holes in your vinyl or removal of the print. Be sure to use chemicals that are friendly to your vehicle wrap, washing it constantly will keep your vehicle wrap in the best condition with no effects from UV lights and acid dew.

Should You Laminate Your Wrap

Our customers tell us that over laminating their vinyl wraps is a necessity. The vinyl over laminate not only protects the print from fading, abrasion, gasoline, ect., but also strengthens the vinyl which makes installation easier. Using lamination will also make removable of the vinyl easier if and when you decide to do so. The best part about lamination is the extra protection it will give your car. If you ever accidently set a chemical bottle or paint on your vehicle it is no problem with the lamination it will come right off.

This Avalanche is laminated with 8518.

Test Wrap Before You Wrap

TransferRite Ultraclear 1310 Grid material is the best way to plan your vehicle wrap before actually applying it. This material with 1'' grid squares helps you determine where your images are going to fall so they don't end up on the wheel or wrong door panel. You apply it to your vehicle before wrapping and map out how you would like the imaging and where the printing should take place. This is not a material that is used often but it is good for the perfectionist who wants to make sure all things line up perfectly. Many graphic designers and wrappers will do their measurements without this grid system, but sometimes it shows in their work. If you want to prevent any mistakes and leave a happy customer paying the price to insure that this is used on your wrap could be worth it.

  

Static Cling

Static cling is a material which has a static side and a print side. Its important that you don't print on the static side, doing so will cause a bad image and take away the static cling effect.You also want to be sure not to apply the print side to the glass, this could cause for color stains in the glass and will also ruin your image. Static cling material is great to advertise your business by sticking to cars, empty building, essentially anything that will except the cling. If you put your static cling flyers in the right places then you can expand your customer base. People always need some type of service, sometimes their just to lazy to find where and who can provide it for them. So if your providing a service using static cling flyers can be a great way to advertise, because now you take away the searching people would have to do to find your business and give them all the information they need on your flyer. The ability to stick it to peoples cars and office windows gives you more probability of getting hits from people that could use what you have to offer. Static cling print outs are usually smaller but can be a very effective form of advertisement.

  

GlowEfx

GlowEfx is a special material that glows in the dark. Unlike other glow in the dark materials GlowEfx has a "brighter" white which charges rapidly to artificial light or sunlight. When the lights go out you will experience a bright green color replace that of the white. Strontium aluninate pigment provides extended glow life, visible for up to an hour. GlowEfx will charge in 10 minutes with indoor light. This is a material that can be printed on giving you complete ability to create custom glow in the dark images. GlowEfx is easily applicable to smooth surfaces and flat substrates, its the perfect thing to add some design and light to a childrens room or spice up the environment of your next party. GlowEfx are fun and easy ways to add effect to a room.

  

Digital Signs

These are great for advertisement, they can be self mounted or mounted to a wall or building. A digital flip board is a digital sign that vary in what colors they will show depending on the type you purchase. The higher the quality and more LED lights that your sign has will give you a more crisp and colorful images. By users choice you can either have the sign display a single image or you can make it interchangeable from a selection of time variances such as 10, 20 or 30 seconds. By using the interchangeable effect you can advertise for multiple things within seconds.

Digital Flip Boards are good to have if you are in a business park, mall or location where potential customers will be walking or driving slow by. The digital sign will grasp everyone's attention in itself, once that happens you are generating multiple views on multiple advertisements. This type of sign would be great to use so customers can see the different promotions  your company may be offering, dates for events, or you can even sell slots of advertisement to other business owners. This type f sign is all about location, you want to make sure it will generate the most views as possible.

Building Mounted

Buildings themselves can act as a sign, this type of signage will either be parallel or perpendicular to the building. Building mounted signs are great to light up and will bring a lot of attention to your business. The biggest problem you will face with a building mounted sign is installation and repairs. Just driving around Tampa I have seen building mounted signs that have been damaged for months. It takes a little machinery and a lot of patients to get these types of signs on the building. All though the process may be difficult it will be well worth it in the end.

If you are in search of a building mounted sign you want to make sure that your designer relates the sign to the style of your building. This is important because this sign is going to be the new dress of your building. Most people wouldn't walk out of their houses miss match and those that do usually don't generate positive first impressions. You want to make sure that when people see your building they get a positive impression that makes them want to investigate further of what your business has to offer. Make sure to fit your building with a unique yet related sign to insure an increase in your customer base.

  

Seamless Wrap

Vehicle wrappers who are able to seamless wrap a vehicle are the kings of the vehicle wrap industry. A seamless wrap only comes into effect if the wrap is going to have graphics and designs that pass from one panel of the car to the next. If you watch someone wrap a vehicle is it not a process that seems extremely complicated. Well I hate to break the news to you but there's a reason that wrapping vehicles is a profession. A seamless wrap means there are no overlapping vinyl when the wrap is complete.

The most important factors to a seamless wrap are good pre planning and a steady hand. Someone who is good at seamless wrapping has a very good pre plan. They now exactly what is going where and what order in order to get the cleanest seamless wrap. If you can in vision the process before going about it, it will be much more simple.

A wrap with no seams is as good as it gets. Your vehicle will look great, most people will probably compliment you on a custom paint job, that's your opportunity to blow their mind with some little facts about whats really on your car. The wrap industry is growing but there are still many people who are unaware and missing out on great opportunities.

Lamination

Lamination is like the last couple touch ups you would put on a project to make it perfect. Lamination provides the shine and the protection. Depending on what type of sign and vinyl you are working with lamination can be essential or not important at all. For example, if you are putting in an order for a banner that will be outside at all times and you only need it to last about a year, this would not require any lamination. But without lamination the banner would need to be handled carefully. The lamination acts as a protection to scratches, whether and fading. So when your putting in an order for a banner that will be used in and outside and you want it to last 3-5 years it would be recommended to get it laminated. You banner should still be handled with care but now there is extra protection for it. The lamination also gives your banner a nice shine and reflects sunlight and protects from bad whether which prevents fading. Some times its worth spending a little extra to get more, lamination is not required but it can be vital to have if you want the best looking sign.

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Helmet Stickers

Stickers can be very effective imagery if used the correct way. Those interested in motorcycles will start looking at the protective gear they wear in different ways. With the ability to print any graphic at any size wanted you can spend less money on helmets with cool graphics and images and buy the less expensive single color ones. Than head to Laser Sharp Sign Design where we can create you your own custom image for your helmet. We will install onto the helmet for you and just like that you have your own custom graphic helmet. Everyone wants to ride in style and now you can make your own. Another big advantage is when you get tired of the image you have on your helmet you can bring it in and create a new one. We will simply remove the sticker that is on your helmet and put on the new one. This is a great way for you to save money, ride in style, and leave yourself the ability to make changes.

Before/After Signage

World of Floors in Tampa Fl decided that it as time for an upgrade in their signage. As you can see in images they go from a plain white and red banner hanging about their door to a illuminated light box sign. The new signage makes their appearance much more professional and easy to read. Customers notice the way your company represents itself, seeing a banner represent a company that insures quality work leaves doubt in a customers mind. Having professional signage is the difference between showing up to an interview in pajamas or in a suit and tie. You have to represent your business the way you would want to be when trying to attract customers, high quality and professional. World of Floors also added a street sign to help attract more customers from the road. This is big for their business, now they can attract customers that may have never known they were there. Know with new signage and a new business logo created by Laser Sharp Sign Design's graphic artist World of Floors will draw much more attention and increase their customer awareness.

Before                                                                         After

Street Sign

Carnivals

Carnivals are always good for the family to get out of the house and have a good time. Games, rides, food, and shows for everyone to enjoy. One of the coolest things are the lights and images on the rides and stands through out the whole carnival. All of these images that are on the rides, the fun houses, food stands and games are vinyl material that is wrapped on to display these fun images. The food carts are pretty standard, they are lite up with lights and display images of their  food with pricing a slogan to get you coming their way. The fun houses are the best. Most fun houses are in the back of semi-trucks and have large amounts of space for crazy "carnival" type imaging. Through the inside and out of a fun house you can be very creative on the imagery. Games are also great to deck out and grab attention. The people that run the games are always haggling you to come try their game and show you that its possible even though you know your probably going to get screwed over. Something that always grabs my attention of a cool game besides the prizes is the graphics and images around the game.

Carnivals use signage in big ways that most people dont think about. I guarantee that most people that read this will have previosley thought that all these things at a carnival were painted on. Their not because vinyl material gives a better image that will hold up longer in whetherand will be more durable. Carny's are always traveling they can be worried about their signage being damaged, by wrapping their rides, games and food carts they are insuring the best durability possible.

Sponsorship's

Sponsorship's are great ways to advertise and get your business recognized. Although they come at a cost they are very effective and have a time period which they will last. At Laser Sharp Sign Design we get a lot of banners requested for sponsors at places such as sporting facilities. This type of banner may be laid out different then one you would put right in front of your business. When you are creating a sponsorship, in this example were gonna create in for a sporting facility, you want to grab attention give as much information as possible. This may be a case where you want your banner to have a background. A background that we previously did for a sponsorship was a baseball field with the company information over top of it. This makes the banner relate to the environment that it is in, then when people see what company the banner is for they will start to relate baseball to the banners sponsor.

In the image below you see the background of the baseball field with Fish Hawk Pizzeria in bold red letters that stand out and give plenty of information. When people see this sign they will relate baseball to pizza. For Fish Hawk Pizzeria this has generated a lot of business, now when games are over people have the idea of pizza in their head and they go there to get some.

Vehicle Wrap vs Custom Paint Repair

When you get a new vehicle wrap or paint job on your car your not thinking about the chance of an accident afterwards and what the repairs will cost just for your paint. Obviously if you have a big accident the paint is no longer a worry, but I'm talking about little scuffs and scratches, although they may be small they are very noticeable and can be costly. The cost for you to repair something like this on your custom paint job is far more expensive then the cost of repair for a vehicle wrap. With a custom paint job they will be required to buffer out damage and the remaining paint in order to have a good starting point and make it look like nothing ever happened. Which brings me to my next point. Unless the person painting your car is absolutely excellent at was they do you will notice dis-figuration in the paint, whether it be slightly of on design or color.

With a vehicle wrap getting a scratch or scuff is not to big of a deal. As a matter of fact if the scuff is minor enough there is a good chance that the vehicle wrap protected your original paint from any damage. If that's the case, you simply pay for the little material we need to use to replace that panel of the car. We simply rip of the vinyl that was there and apply the new one. If the design is eccentric then is also takes skill to get everything matched up and back into place, but this is much simpler because there will be no dis-figuration in color. Once the vinyl gets replaced no one will ever be able to tell anything happened.

Keep this comparison in mind when your thinking its time for a new paint job. Vinyl wraps are more reliable, durable, and less expensive to repair.

 

Etched Glass

Etched glass is the type of look you usually see when walking into a business such as a bank. It has a defined look that allows for privacy but also looks professional. It is frosted out glass blurs out everything in the room. Although it is a cool look you have to be careful in the ways you use it. It is very hard to read small etched glass lettering on doors and even harder if the light is hitting it the wrong way. Etched glass needs to have proper lighting  and environment in order to look good. I would suggest not using it as the small lettering on the outside of your office door. If you have big letters or an image such as your logo that would be much more visible in etched glass. This is a very unique look that will add a little more class to your office.

Proofs

When working with customers, whether it be on a banner, poster, retail sign, vehicle wrap, ect we have the ability to give them a proof. This is a virtual image of what their signage will look like, this is very helpful because if we were to just print things there would be things wrong and when we have to reprint that waste time, money and materials. It is important to us to have the customer satisfied before we even print. Proofs are a great way for us to work with our customers on making their image look exactly how they want it. It also allows us to be creative and give them different options to choose from. If a customer is unsure of what they want our graphic designer will come up with 2 or 3 proofs for the customer to choose from and get ideas.

The following images show the proofs of a vehicle and trailer wrap. They are images of what they would look like after we applied the new wraps.

Black Escalade Wrapped in Stormtrooper White

The following pictures show the process of a black Escalade be wrapped in Stormtrooper White. Panel by panel the Escalade turns into a new vehicle. You will also notice that the rims had some touching up to go with the new white.

Work Trucks

Companies that provide a service usually have a fleet of work trucks to go on job sites. These trucks are a big investment, but if used correctly you can use that as a huge advertisement tool and gain a lot more business. When you make this investment one of the first things to mind should be making them into billboards on wheels. Whether you choose to go vehicle wrap or decals your trucks should be plastered with your logo, name and information about your company. It is a huge advantage to have trucks like these on site because now you are physically showing people who drive by the service you provide. When people see what you are doing the first thing they will do is look for your work truck. This is where it is important not only to make sure that you are advertising on your truck, but doing it to the best of your ability. I have talked a lot about the signs that represent you, this has the same effect. If people see the service but then see a truck with beat and worn signage representing the company they will most likely keep passing by without a care. But if your truck has good color and graphics that will grab peoples attention and make them more interested in the service that you are providing. It goes back to looking professional, even with the economy in a slump people still want professional work, its essential that they get things done right the first time and there's no better way to show that your that company then giving them a great first impression from your image.

The below images show a work truck before and after getting updated signage. It makes the truck much more visible and easy to read. Customers don't look at the type of work vehicle you use, they care about the image that you create for yourself. People will recognize a vehicle with good signage on it no matter what type it is, that is your advertisement and its what convinces people to use your service.