Vehicle Wrap Designing

[RandyDe]

I've been asked if I can design a vehicle wrap as I'm a professional graphic designer. This being the case I haven't designed detailed vehicle wraps other than flat sided truck trailers. Where is the best place to learn how to properly design vehicle wraps. Where would I get templates of vehicles for proportions, creating proofs, etc?

 

[myront]

Photos of the actual vehicle are best. Nice straight on shots and don't be afraid to back up a bit as cameras distort images, you can always crop later. Take key measurements i.e. door width, tailgate width, etc. Use those measurement's to scale the photos in the program of choice. Trace the perimeter of the vehicle as needed to use as a clipping mask or powerclip. Keep in mind to include a good amount of bleed as the prints will be done as rectangles.
If you want to use templates it'll cost ya. We use templates as a guide. The templates won't show dealer add-ons or indicate how deep any curves are and such.

 

[Bobby H]

Aside from the basic stuff like taking good, straight-on photos of the vehicle and getting proper measurements the actual design work requires some strategy.

The actual wrap installation is a not-perfect thing. So avoid doing things like making border striping effects that follow around wheel wells and other physical features of the vehicle. If certain graphics elements have to fall in a specific position, such as a logo positioned over the center of a door, sometimes it will be best to print/cut those elements separately and install them over background graphics. Beware of letting important elements wrap over transition points on vehicle panels, such as something wrapping over the edge of the hood onto front fenders. The rear side panels and back of the vehicle are other serious transition points.

 

[Gino]

According to the basic 'basics', always before hitting the print button, make sure you physically look at the vehicle and make sure none of the smaller copy is in hard to 'get at' areas. Not hitting fender flares or other obstacles which might not show up in a photograph. Try to avoid hinges and other things which will distort copy. As you get more under your belt, these things will all make sense.

Had a professional designer..... new to the company make the designs for the 'new' look of their fleet. She sure was new. She had things crooked and all over the place. When the trucks got here, I called her about these things and her response was, do it exactly as I gave it to you. Okay. Got all 3 trucks done and one of the vice presidents and her asked me to come out. He said this sh!t is Unacceptable. I said, this is what I was told to do and he said he didn't care, I should've corrected anything I saw wrong. I said there's so much wrong and I tried, but to deaf ears. In my face, she said I never set it up like that. You're fired and you're not getting paid for this mess. She actually photo-shopped things off the original photo of the truck to make her design look good, but in real time, it didn't work. So, be careful.

 

[Boudica]

Lot's of good advice so far... Do you know who is producing and installing the graphics? They might be able to hook you up with a template of the vehicle. We have had customers who want to hire a designer/friend - or they have an in-house designer - to layout their vehicle graphics, and we will give them a template to design on. We get our templates from Art Station. You might even ask the company that will be doing the production if they have any guidelines to offer.

 

[JBurton]

Also to say, if you've been contracted to design, with no potential to install, make sure you have a contract with pricing signed off on beforehand. There's a great deal of detail work to go into a wrap, typical design cost would be between $250-1000, depending on intricacies and design readiness of the files you're providing.
If you're just slapping text across the doors, that's less of a wrap and more of a lettered vehicle, and design time should be much less of an investment.