David,

Are those Photoshop comps? I just received an email this morning showing a commercial 18-wheeler, depicting an image of the company's product.

Same truck with several layouts for various products.

Edit: Looks the the van in your photos is real, showing all sides, except the front.

Dave, maybe for three months in summer. You should see our vans at this time of year.
BDW nice pic.

Tony

If they're not Photoshop composites, then somebody screwed up the angle of the domain name on the right front fender in picture #2. ;-)

Nice pics though, and it certainly seems like it would be better promotion that one of those small magnetic signs on the door that a lot of people get.

David;

Is this the Sam Varn delivery vehicle....., I wonder what that expenditure was.... looks great

Rob

Dave,

I think that is a little bit of an "optical illusion" going on there.

The curves on the body of the truck make it appear at a worse angle than it really is.

The text you pointed out is on the same liner angle as the rest of the text on the door.

The one line does look odd tho :O

Nice delivery vehicle...... I have mixed feelings for something like that. Would customers think you are overcharging them if you could afford a vehicle like that? :/

~

It's called vehicle wrapping....and lots of companies are doing this now. Any reputible fleet graphics company should be able to do this kind of work these days....

Regarding if it's effective or not....I'm guessing that it is. Many fleet companies have shifted to this type of product for marking their vehicles.

I think if you were located in a populated area that it could be worth while (assuming you can justify the cost).

I don't know what it costs to wrap a vehicle with graphics, but there are at least 2 pricing structures around here.

1. You can outright pay to have the graphics printed and applied to your vehicle.

2. Lease the graphics, you pay a per month fee for a designated time period on your vehicle. (I guess if you don't pay, they have Guido come flatten your tires!) :O)

~

Thank ya Dave... I guess I'll keep using my Ford Tauras ....only advertising on it is a personalized plate "AWARDZZ"...

Of course there' always the 1981 Ford Pick me up, slightly rusted, fishin rods and such and a very nice paint scheme :B

Regards
Rob

Before I posted I did notice that the same name on picture one looked more level than in picture two. But now that I look at them again I believe what is going on is that picture two was taken with a wider angle lens setting than picture one. (or more zoomed out)

If you look at the grass/driveway line in picture one it is fairly straight. In picture two it doesn'have the grass in front like picture one, but if you look at the grass/driveway line behind the van in picture two you'll see it has a curve to it. And the curve matches the angle of the text (text on the right vs the grass on the right).

So I guess it was applied to the van OK, but picture two being a bit more wide angle made that text look more distorted than picture one.

Dave:
We did this type of imaging at the company I used to work for. We covered Greyhound buses, semi's, etc. 8 years ago, it cost approx $15.00 per sq ft for the output and install. 3M makes the substrate and if you do something like this be sure to get the uv laminate. That being said it will last about 3 years before it starts to degrade. We used to compose all our work in Photoshop. The final output is usually no more than 50-75 dpi. You can probably google 3M vehicle graphics to get the stats. They used to be something like this. For every eight hours the vehicle is on a urban toll road, you will get approx 14,000 views (approx 2.5 secs each). Worth it? From a marketing standpoint, it has a powerful, measurable ROI. We had a program in place for trucking companies that went something like this. Let us talk to your clients, we'll put vehicle graphics on your semi's, pay you for the space (about what it costs to change oil or tires in a given period), and everyone was happy. Composing the content is where the challange comes--you have to have color flight charts for the device doing the output--or it will be compromised. Now adays though they have really nice 6 color flat bed printers or the Arizona machine. They really fly on the output side. Install them is also tricky. You need someone with experience, or you will have bubbles, creases, tears, etc.
It will definatley brand your company. Worth it? I would say yes if you have the budget. If you really want to know more about this stuff, I'd be happy to discuss it.
Michael

I'm starting to wish I'd taken the estimating spreadsheets for the other divisions of the company I used to work for. But ah well...

As I recall a full vehicle wrap would cost anywhere from 1 to 2.5 grand depending on the amount of design involved, the size of the vehicle, the complexity of the vehicle (hard curves to go around? Rivets to cover?).

If you're skilled with vinyl application there are places you could order the prints and apply them yourself. Look in the classifieds in the back of Sign Business from NBM.

If you have a box truck you can get a banner mounting system that consists of metal rails bolted to the side of the truck. A banner is then stretched between these rails allowing for relatively cheap, easy to change graphics. These are great since you can change them season to season, or even month to month to reflect specials. I never worked with them personally, though, so I don't have an idea of the cost.

It's definitely a step up from magnetics, though. When I drive around I hardly notice vehicle mags at all, but a good wrap job is difficult to miss.

Sei

Dave:
My take on the vehicle you showed--at least 3K. The design time is the key here, how long, was there specialty photo work involved, et al. Could it get to 5K--oh yeah, easy.
Mike