Why you should brand your company’s vehicle and do it well.

If you have never thought of getting graphics for your company’s vehicle, here is some food for your thoughts. If you had thought of it, but didn’t know where to start I will hopefully answer most of your questions here.

Why should I do it?

Vehicle graphics are an incredible investment for small businesses, of course they do have a cost (basically the more you cover with graphics, the more you pay), but they can last 10 years and over, and they advertise your company every single second of each of those years.
Basically every pair of eyes that settles on your van or car, is one less flyer you need to print and deliver to let potential clients know that your company exists.
How many flyers is that?

What are the options?

Vehicle livery design can range from a magnet you can stick on your door just when you are working: that will cost you about £60 in design + £20 for a small one if you print it cheap; to a full wrapping of your vehicle: that will cost about 400/450 in design (with my rates at least), plus 700/1000 for print and installation (considering a 70/80% wrapping of a small sized car).

Magnets

Plus of magnets:

• They can come off whenever you want.
• They aren’t invasive.
• They are affordable.

Minus of magnets:

• You need to stick them on flat areas of your vehicle, which often are the bonnet or the doors, which are not always the most readable ones (the bonnet is often seen through a rear mirror, the doors are often too low to be seen from the car queueing on your side).
• Not being invasive they also attract less attention, and being smaller so are your details.
• The design does not integrate with your van/car.

Wrapping:

A vehicle wrapping can be as light or as full as you like, and that will reflect on how much you will spend.

Things to keep in mind:

The print price will depend, among other things, also on the quality of the vinyl you print on, if your car in on lease for 5 years, then no point in spending more for better vinyl that will last for 10, if the car is yours then the longer the better!
Good graphics can integrate your car’s colour in the design, so that you don’t need wrapping just to cover the vehicle’s colour.
In general, if you are choosing a car knowing you might want to brand it, I suggest you go for white or a colour that will suit your branding, just like Albany Lettings did with their Fiat 500 (see photo), that will save you a lot of money in wrapping.

If you decide you are ready to invest in vehicle graphic here is my advice:

Make it useful:

Make sure all of your contacts are there and well visible, website, telephone number, email, social media.
Remember it’s a big piece of your branding, and a great form of corporate advertising, so treat it as such.

Make it beautiful:

It will be visible, but if you want it to be memorable, you also have to invest in getting good design.
In most cases the print company will offer you design included in the print price, but will only offer basic options (they can’t afford to spend hours on your design), do consider them, specially if you already have a good range of elements in your branding they can reuse, but for more tailored and detailed designs, then you should contact a designer.

If you don’t have appropriate imagery in your brand assets, this is probably a good chance to get an illustration done, or some photos taken, make sure you then use that same visual on your website and social media as well!

The design should reflect the rest of your branding, have your logo, corporate colour and visual identity, of course, but the best wrappings are usually those who take in consideration the shapes they are on, and either are organically developing around the car/van, or play with it creating optical illusions.
Basically, don’t just stick a photo on the side and contacts at the back!

Make it last:

Choose good quality print and installation, they really makes a difference on the outcome and durability of the wrapping.
Only include long term contact details, for example I would leave out social media if you are not really engaging in them.
This way you will give your wrapping (and your investment) a longer life because it won’t go out-of-date.

Have any more to ask or a comment to make? Just drop me a message here!