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Designing a wrap for passenger vans can be challenging. As opposed to commercial vans which have large amounts of flat unobstructed space, the passenger van has windows that either need to be avoided or brought into the design. This design requirement can often result in boring wraps designs without much creativity, or smaller less impactful graphics on the vans.
And really, these commercially used passenger vans have as much right to a great wrap as any commercial vehicle. They often tackle more miles than commercial vans, and therefore have more opportunities to reach the driving “audience”. In fact, not using a passenger van to advertise for your company is really creating a wasted advertising asset. Whether a full or partial wrap, or even decals and lettering, taking advantage of your fleet to build awareness and equity in your brands or services only makes sense!
We recently got a chance to do a couple of wraps for Crittenton Services for Children and Families in Fullerton, CA. Crittenton helps pair foster families with children that need them. They have a number of extended Ford E350 passenger vans and wanted to leverage them to help spread the word about their great cause and to recruit foster families.
There were some key elements that they wanted us to include on their wrap design, and they were on a budget, so we chose a partial wrap. That choice saved the cost of the vinyl and laminate on the hood, roof and the front of the van – areas prone to faster wear and the least desirable from a vehicle advertising standpoint. Once the style was determined we sought to include their key elements: a picture of a diverse foster family, their company name, recruiting number and message, and website address with QR codes so that passersby could scan them with their smartphones to access their website.
Crittenton also wanted us to work with their corporate colors and two different vans – one with a white base color and one with a grey base color. Finally, we wanted to take advantage of the large vans and not be constrained by windows, so we suggested including the windows in the design. This allowed us to use larger images for greater impact from a distance. With that direction and a couple of proofs, we had alignment with the customer on the design and we got started.
We chose 3M vinyl and a 3M gloss laminate to give a finish that would complement the gloss paint colors and help the visual transition from vinyl to paint. With the subliminal background in the design – the pictures contrast well and pop with color. The 3M products wear better and last longer than their cheaper competitors and we wanted a wrap that would look good for years. We also chose a 50/50% perforated vinyl and optically clear overlaminate for the rear van windows. This allows vision out the windows but not in the windows. The laminate helps extend the life of the graphics by filtering UV rays and helping the perforated vinyl adhere more strongly to the windows.
The graphics were then printed on our Hewlett Packard large format digital printer in high resolution. The resulting images have amazing clarity and the color combination really made the van graphics look great – on both base colors!
To be less of a disruption to the day-to-day operations of our customer’s business, we worked on one van at a time and the customer was able to pick up the first completed van when dropping off the second for installation. We do our wraps on-site in our large garage at our Buena Park location, where we can accommodate several vehicles at a time in a secure and enclosed area for the best wrap results. Extreme temperatures and dust can be the cause of a poor wrap install or a future seam or edge failure. Our expert in-house installation staff did the installs in about a day and a half each, and the results were flawless!
Our customer was wowed by the results and has plans for us to work on more vehicles in their fleet in the future because of the great experience and great value!
Call Superior Signs and Graphics in Buena Park, CA at 714-739-2855 for a free consultation on your vehicle graphics project today!
Posted by Scott Hoffman on 12/17/13