Banner Stands

Many people think about getting a banner for an event or convention to put up information they want to present. The problem is when I see banners, most of the time they are tied up by zip ties or a rope. This is unprofessional and is not good for the banner itself. In business one of the most important aspect that all people look for is quality, and if you are looking at a company for the first time you decide what kind of quality work they do by two ways. Looking at past work they have done if any and by the quality of the stuff they have to represent themselves. Although it seems like such a small detail have the correct banner stand to go with your size banner can make a big difference in the way your banner is presented. The stand will make it so your banner is pulled tight from all corners making it more visible and easy to read then if it had a bend in it. A stand will also increase the life span of your banner. A more professional look will give you better customers who are more worried about what their finished product looks like instead of finding the best price in town and its up to you to show them that the quality of your work is better then any competitors.

  

Channel Letters Material Options

  

Channel letters are one of the best signs to choose from to mark your business. When I say mark your business I mean these are the best signage piece to go with for the front of your company, these should be used above your front door to attract passing customers and identify your company.

Then industry standard for backings of channel letters is made from a aluminum with either a pre-painted finish or a mill finish. Other types of finishes could be anodized, brushed anodized and mirrored, the difference can be found in the thickness of the aluminum. The facing of the letters is where you can get more customized and create your own identity by selecting from color schemes material types, size and trim of the letters. The material for the facing of the letters comes in any color you would like, depending on the type of material you choose the LED lights will shine brightly making your letters brighter or dimmed down some by the material giving you a deeper color. Before LED lights were the standard channel letters did not have the depth they do know and were not as vibrant. Now the depth has been increased and the LED lights are very effective in lighting up the letters making them colorful and easily visible. Channel letters are a great  for getting attention during the day and night, they are big and easily read making it easy for customers to locate or stumble across your company. Either way they are a great and inexpensive investment to attract more business.

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.

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.

  

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.

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.

The Signage That Represents Yo

The sign that is on your company or by the road where your company is located is the sign that represents you. This is the sign that everyone sees while passing by. Think about times where you have passed a building with beat and worn signage, that is the same impression that you get on the company itself. If a company cant take the time and money to make themselves look go then what are they going to be able to do for you. That is the same mindset you have to have for your own company. You want people to pass by with the impression that your a professional at what you do. Believe it or not that starts with the signage people see. That gives them their first impression so make sure that it is a positive and professional one.

The below images show the transformation of AGS Stone replacing their old worn signs with new and improved ones. They look much more professional and up to date. The new signs attract attention and will bring in more customers.

Weeding

Weeding is the process of getting just the imaging or letters you want from a piece of cut-vinyl. When are working with cut-vinyl you start with a whole piece of vinyl to put into the cutter. The graphic design sets up the image that needs to be set up and tells the cutter when to start cutting. The cutter uses dimensions of the vinyl in order to make exact cuts. The machine is very quick and precise, it uses a tiny blade connected to the “head” which stores the dimensions and controls the cuts on the vinyl.

Once the machine is done the process of weeding begins. Depending on the color of the vinyl the cut lines can be easy or hard to see. Use the lighting around you in order to find them. When weeding you have to remember that you want to leave the image that you cut out on the paper, meaning that you are “weeding” or peeling away the outer parts of the image. At the end of the process you should be left with the image that your machine cut out still on the paper. This allows you to transfer the image to a wax paper, then from there place it onto the substrate you want.

An example that shows how important this type of installment is name, number, and office hours on doors of business. Have you ever wondering, wow how did they get all these letters so strait? They didnt, the machine cuts them out strait and then they are just transferred from the wax paper to the door. This gives the installer the ability to make all the letters strait without having to apply them one by one.

Vector Color

Coloring vector objects is similar to coloring with crayons in a coloring book. Its all about staying between the lines. With vector images you can change the color of each individual object without having to worry about pixels. With a drawing program a user can click within an object and define its color, it also enables users to define the color and the widths of lines. Vector images are much easier to color then bitmaps.

  

Vector Resolution

Unlike using dpi such as a raster image does, a vector image is defined by math. When a program sizes a vector image up and down, it is simply multiplying the mathematical description of the object by a scaling factor. An example would be, in order to double the size of a 1'' square object, it would need to be multiplied by a factor of 2. The math is simply recalculated to produce an object double the size. Since vector images are capable of scaling up or down without the loss of image quality, they can be printed at any resolution that a printer is able to produce. Because the vector images don't use dots per inch or scanning resolution like the raster images, they create a much better quality and this is a big reason why vector graphics are mainly used in clip art.