Your Outdoor Media Cheat Sheet

When you’re looking to produce outdoor banners, signage, floor graphics or vehicle wraps, we’ve got the go-to products to help you get the job done with the best results.

Check out the infographic below for 12 outstanding products for these applications. We’ve listed the appropriate printer types, outdoor durability duration (short-term to long-term) and some product highlights you’ll want to keep in mind.

Click the image below to see the full chart.

outdoor media crop

Beyond Branding with Perforated Window Vinyl

Window Graphics Legacy Nissan

Legacy Nissan in London, Ky., has been effectively branding itself with larger-than-life brand murals applied to both its exterior-facing and interior windows.

Mobile Advertising with LexJet Perforated Window VinylThough it continues to emphasize the Nissan brand, Legacy Nissan is also emphasizing specific services and promotions that help set it apart from other dealerships using LexJet Aqueous Perforated Vinyl (70/30) printed with an Epson Stylus Pro 9900.

Pictured here is Legacy Nissan’s most recent campaign, highlighting the fact that its salespeople aren’t driven by commission using a simple, direct approach: No Sales Commission. How Refreshing.

Vehicle Window GraphicsThis is the message now front and center across its storefront windows, and displayed on the road with perforated window vinyl applied to the windows of the Sentra the dealership uses for official business around town.

Tied into other marketing media, like social media and printed collateral, the new campaign is already paying dividends, says Legacy Nissan’s Missy Reid.

“Signage is an important part of our marketing campaigns, so in addition to using the window vinyl we’re also printing banners with LexJet TOUGHcoat Blockout Scrim Banner,” explains Reid. “We’re doing some shorter-term campaigns now and these are very effective methods to get the word out, particularly when you combine the big graphics on the window with supporting graphics inside the showroom, and the mobile advertising.”

Printing Custom Trailer Graphics in a Flash

 

Printing and installing trailer graphics

Alex Garcia, owner of New Wave Sign Co., Miami, recently encountered one of those rush jobs so common to wide format graphics production, particularly in the vehicle graphics niche. Fortunately for Garcia, he had access to everything he needed at his fingertips.

“The customer had a show scheduled in California and needed a trailer wrap in 48 hours. Thankfully, I had a new roll of LexJet Simple Flo Wrap Vinyl and told them I could do a partial wrap instead of a full wrap,” recalls Garcia. “And, since LexJet is able to deliver products to us so quickly I can turn a rush job like this around without having to charge extra. I was low on ink and fortunately I was able to call the order in to LexJet and I got the ink right away.”

Garcia was able to print right away, sending the design he created to his Epson Stylus Pro GS6000 low-solvent printer, then laminating the Simple Flo Wrap Vinyl with Simple Flo Wrap Gloss UV Laminate (2.4 Mil).

“The truck was white so I incorporated that white space into the design. The printed area is a line that’s about 52 inches tall that grows into three vertical panels. I also printed out the logos that were placed in the white space and contour cut them on my Summa cutter,” explains Garcia.

Though this was not a “full wrap” by definition, meaning that the graphics were not applied around the edges of the back and front of the trailer, it sure looks like a full wrap. Garcia and his team began applying the printed panels at 2 a.m., working through the wee morning hours to complete it in time.

“We washed the truck really well so that the white areas would really shine and to make sure the installation went smoothly. However, it was a challenge because we were wrapping in really cold weather, which is unusual in South Florida, even this time of year. We used a propane torch and heated the whole side of the truck to make the application surface warmer and kept the material in a car with the heater on to keep the graphics at room temperature,” says Garcia. “We love the Simple Flo Wrap Vinyl because it images nicely, it’s economical and it applies easily.”

Making an Impression, Leaving a Trail at Muddy Feet Graphics

Advertising with bus graphics

Muddy feet certainly do leave an impression and the muddier the feet the more impressions you leave. That’s Todd Dofflemyer’s philosophy, figuratively speaking of course, where the mud his company gets its feet dirty with is the diversity of products it offers its customers.

Dofflemyer, owner of Muddy Feet Graphics in Harrisonburg, Va., has an extensive history in the commercial printing world; he was instrumental in bringing one of the world’s largest commercial printers into the digital world from analog back in the 1980s. When he struck out on his own less than two years ago, he combined his experience in innovation with a studious view of trends in the graphics market that has helped Muddy Feet Graphics grow quickly in a short time.

Advertising with fleet graphics on vehicles
Muddy Feet Graphics used Simple Flo Wrap Vinyl, laminated with Simple Flo Wrap Gloss UV Laminate for an easy and ecomonical fleet project.

“We call ourselves a graphics company and not a sign company since we can put a logo on just about anything,” says Dofflemyer. That’s why printing t-shirts is an important component of Muddy Feet Graphics’ business. Though it represents only about 20 percent of the company’s production, it feeds the large-format graphics and sign side of the business and vice-versa.

Muddy Feet Graphics does not screen print, but instead goes direct-to-shirt with an AnaJet direct-to-garment inkjet printer. This process allows short, on-demand, custom runs that t-shirt printing has been trending toward over the past few years.

“I’d rather find a hundred people who need ten shirts, rather than ten people who need 100. People don’t want to keep a lot of inventory and potentially waste shirts, so we can customize their order so they don’t keep as much in stock,” says Dofflemyer. “When someone comes in to pick up a banner they see us making t-shirts and vice-versa, so the more things you have that are similar but not the same, the more opportunity you have.”

Another area where Muddy Feet Graphics is making inroads thanks to its logo-on-everything approach is vehicle graphics. Vehicle wraps have been slower to arrive on the scene in Virginia than hot spots like California and Florida, but once local customers saw the advertising value of it, more jobs began to roll into the shop.

“If it’s $2,500 for a vehicle wrap and you spread it across four years, the average lifetime of a fleet vehicle, it comes out to about $50 per month. Then, compare that cost and the overall effectiveness of a moving billboard to other media with less visibility and the price is easier for the customer to accept,” explains Dofflemyer.

Another trend that Dofflemyer has noticed and responded to is the more temporary nature of the requests that come through the door. For a recent bus wrap, Muddy Feet Graphics used a removable vinyl for the body of the bus and LexJet Simple Perforated Window Vinyl (60/40) for the windows.

“We used a removable vinyl for the bus project since the message will change regularly, and we used the LexJet window perf because we were having problems with the other window perf we were using.

Printing wall murals for bedrooms
Todd Dofflemyer, owner of Muddy Feet Graphics, says he's found the perfect wall mural material in LexJet Simple WallCal (6 Mil).

No matter how long I let it sit it was transferring to the unprinted area of the window perf and we found the LexJet material applies easier and I don’t have a problem with the ink drying,” explains Dofflemyer. “Now it seems that everybody wants a message that’s tailored to today that could change tomorrow.

You used to see a lot more metal real estate signs, for instance, but you’re seeing more step stakes. In this economy, that house will sit there for awhile so they want to change the message a lot. Everybody needs to be more aggressive so that message needs to change more.”

And that’s good news for everyone in the large format graphics market. Additionally, Dofflemyer has noticed that clients are including a QR bar code on more of their printed pieces to take advantage of smart phone technology. A banner can serve a dual purpose of getting a quick look-at-me message with a QR code that takes the curious to a website with more in-depth information.

“Digital graphics can be distributed in all kinds of ways and we’re finding that more and more of them are simply avenues to your phone,” says Dofflemyer.

With its focus on blending printed and purely digital technologies and being ever cognizant of what its customer base needs as progress makes its forward march, Muddy Feet Graphics is poised to make good on its tagline: Make an Impression, Leave a Trail.

Making Production Simple for Signs and Vehicle Graphics

Advanced Signs and Graphics uses LexJet Simple Flo Wrap Vinyl for a lot more than just vehicle graphics because it's ecomonical and simple to use.

Advanced Signs and Graphics, Lancaster, Pa., has found that LexJet Simple Flo Wrap Vinyl is far more versatile than the name implies. Production Manager Bill Felter says the company uses Simple Flo for a lot of different applications beyond vehicles, particularly larger display boards that can be difficult and awkward to apply vinyl to.

“It goes down so nice and you’re able to work out any bubbles or air pockets, especially for large pieces where we’re mounting to wood, PVC or any other material. We don’t have a lot of space, so working on big projects can be a challenge and hinder the application process. Simple Flo makes it so much easier,” says Felter. “It’s got that honeycomb backing and if you have any air pockets it’s very easy to get them out. Once it’s down, and if you have to reposition it a bit, you can pull it up easily and put it back down. The way that it handles and the way it mounts to substrates saves us a ton of time, plus it cuts down on material waste. Over the course of a couple of months it probably saves me a few hundred dollars in spoilage.”

Felter says that Simple Flo is less expensive than similar vinyl products, making it easier to justify its use on projects he might have used an intermediate vinyl on in the past. “I’ve been using it as our everyday vinyl for a lot of different things, like simple post-and-panel signs, real estate signs mounted on half-inch board, display boards where we wrap the vinyl around the edges and even a large 12 ft. x 4 ft. Sign Foam display piece,” adds Felter. “The print quality is as good as any vinyl I’ve printed on; it prints colors that are just as vibrant as a higher-end vinyl.”