Vinyl vehicle wraps and graphics are highly effective marketing tools. They let you turn your existing vehicles into a promotional moving billboard. Nonetheless, many business owners fail to benefit from auto vinyl wrap because of a few common errors. Fortunately, you can easily avoid them. Following are 10 common vehicle graphics mistakes that can be easily avoided:

1. Basic Vehicle Graphics Mistakes – Poor Material

Vinyl material is the basics of vehicle graphics and decals. Wrong or poor material will always lead to disappointment and even a greater cost in the future. Don’t save money on the material, there are many tips that can help you save your cost on vinyl graphics in other ways. ACME uses 3M vinyl as the raw material, you don’t have to worry about peeling, discoloring, bubbling, and other problems within the warranty period.

2. Wrong Size of Vehicle Wrap

Before designing, the first thing we will ask our customers is the vehicle model and size. Vehicle wraps need to be designed to fit the vehicle, not only the make of the vehicle but also the model. Besides, the same car model launched in different years may have differences in size and appearance. If the designer doesn’t consider this, the design could be too long or too short for the vehicle.
It’s important to communicate the exact specifications of the vehicle being wrapped. Don’t 100% trust your vehicle blueprint templates. Take measurements and double-check with your customer.

3. Ignoring Vehicle’s Curves or Details

A vehicle is three-dimensional with curves, body lines, door handles, trim, and add-on equipment. A vehicle graphic designer should encave the ability to imaging the actual effect after the application of the graphic. For example, the gas cap, or the shark air vent need to be taken into consideration. Cutting a logo or letter in half at a door seam can ruin your vehicle wrap design. Your text might get distorted if it has to drape over a bump or protrusion on the side of the car.

4. Toom Much Seams

For large-format graphics, the seam is unavoidable. But a good graphic provider will try to a minimum the seams or cleverly place the seam in some inconspicuous place.

5. Misspelling & Typos

Do not underestimate the importance of checking the proof for spelling errors, typos, or wrong information. Take the time to carefully inspect the phone number, website, correct spelling of services listed, etc.

6. Illegible Fonts

Remember that the vehicle advertising wraps are shown to people at 40~60mph speed. If the fonts are too difficult to decipher, people won’t be able to contact your business. We suggest you use the sans serif fonts — like Arial or Helvetica — or the simplest serif fonts and leave the scripts behind.

7. Busy Design

Too much text or too many colors may lose focus. Keep in mind that less is more. The simplistic design will help your information stand out of the wrap and grab attention.

8. Missing Critical Information

When people pass your wrapped vehicle on the road, they’ll see the side of the vehicle that faces them. So it’s important that your brand and contact information should be viewed from every angle. Take into consideration of the hood and roof, the bodyside, and the rear of the vehicle.

9. Choose the Wrong Color

Select the color of text and graphics based on the original color of the vehicle. Low-contrast color selection cannot highlight information(except for some special cases, such as ghost graphics). For best results, use high contrast color schemes. If you have a white background, choose dark colors for the text. If you have a dark background, pick light colors. For example, purple letters will stand out against a yellow background, and orange letters will be highly visible on a blue background.

10. Preparing The Vehicle Poorly

Even you already got a kit of perfect vinyl car wrap, you may ruin it in the installation process. Wrinkling, bubbling, or lifting may be caused by dirt and grease on the car surface. The vehicle needs to be cleaned thoroughly before application. Check our vinyl vehicle wraps installation steps.

Of course, there are many other vehicle graphics mistakes we haven’t mentioned here. Welcome to share your stories with us and our graphic professionals will help to solve your problems. If you’re looking to get started on the design and installation of a vehicle wrap, contact us(info@acmegraphic.com) for a custom graphic solution!