The Right Sign Materials for the Job

In starting a sign company, we learned that things we never considered signs, were indeed signs.  For instance, the lettering on the side of a service truck or van, falls right into the bailey-wick of a sign company’s products.  Many of today’s signs are made with some type of vinyl applied to some substrate (a fancy word for a material to which the vinyl is applied).  Walk into any sign shop, and you will see many different rolls of vinyl on their production floor.

What makes these rolls different?  Are some better suited for one job versus another?  Here we will explore the different types of vinyl found in your typical sign company’s production floor and how they are used.

• Calendared Vinyl is one  type of vinyl used on a day-to-day basis. This type of vinyl is used for most of the signs we create. Because of the way it is created, calendered vinyl is a thicker vinyl that we use to print digital images or more complex graphics on, and then apply these to various substrates, most of which have flat surfaces.

• “Cut” Vinyl, which is type of calendared vinyl, comes in many different colors and is used for various project types. These projects include boat names, vehicle lettering, and bumper stickers.  This type of vinyl is used for projects where there are only one to three colors required, and the design if fairly simple in nature.  To create these projects, we put a certain color vinyl in our Graphtec plotter, which cuts out the design. We then peel off the excess in a process we call “weeding”, leaving the shape or words needed for the design.  We then cover that design with application tape so that we can apply the intact design to the appropriate substrate.

• Cast Vinyl is a more flexible material than calendered vinyl. For this reason, its primary use is in vehicle wraps and other curvy surfaces.  This type of vinyl is highly conformable because it is much thinner than the calendared vinyl. Since it is so thin, it can conform to the most complex curves on a vehicle to provide a great mobile billboard for your company.

• “Backlit” vinyl is type of cast vinyl, which is specialized to allow light to pass through it more easily.  This type of vinyl is used primarily for the fronts of lighted signs such as marquee signs in front of shopping centers and on the faces of some lighted channel letters.

• Perforated Vinyl is a specialized vinyl used to provide window graphics, primarily on store fronts and vehicles. This type of vinyl has small holes in it that gives the ability to see through them. You can print an image on the outside of the vinyl that others can see to attract business your way, but it still gives full visibility from behind the vinyl (i.e. from the inside of the vehicle or store-front)

.As you can see, the type of vinyl for a job needs to be determined by the type of job it will be doing.  Your sign company can often advise you on the best type for your particular job.

 Examples of the different vinyl types and the projects done with each.

Cut vinyl on the truck is cost efficient, and can be layered for a multi-colored look.	Full vehicle wrap uses cast vinyl in order to cover curvy car surfaces.
Marquee sign uses backlit vinyl to allow it to be illuminated by the light box.	Perforated Vinyl applied to windows allows passengers to see out but the graphic is visible to outsiders.

 

 

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