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printed vinyl mural advice please?
Hi, i have a question regarding a vinyl mural on the side of a truck/trailer, basically its a big flat surface and a mural thats semi cartoon style that is quite busy, most of it has a black outline. It is about 8 metres long by 3 metres high, I have done this mural on both sides of the truck and done two trucks before. therefore i repeated the mural 4 times. I did the first two trucks by cutting 8 metre strips of the black outlines at about 690mm high and matched them up then i had to fit the colours like a jigsaw puzzle. I will provide a picture if someone can tell me how to load it please. These were done a few years ago and now they want another one, Now my question is- i think a pretty stupid one, but I guess i just get the mural coloured in on the computer and print straight onto vinyl and apply say 3 x 8 metres strips (depending on the width of the cutter). and just match up the strips.
If this is the best option, can you tell me………..
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1) what format (artwork) do i supply the printer with – as i dont have a large format print and cut machine
2) what width do they cut
3) what type of vinyl and print quality do i ask forSorry to sound a bit stupid but i havent actually used or ordered pre printed vinyl, any advice is greatly appreciated
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6 Replies
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the best answer is to selttle on a supplier of prints, and call them and ask the same questions, as each company may have different size machines.
If they have a website they proboaly have that info on there.For reference, the company I use has this info on their site.
http://www.flex-fx.com/html/1,1128,Art_ … ts,00.htmlHope this helps
steve -
I agree with Steve, its best to ask the supplier what format etc they would want you to send the artwork over in? There are loads of different machines so cutting width will vary on what size they have in house but again ask them what the maximum is they can do, if they cant do the size you need ask someone else? You could ask them what dpi they print at that way you will then know roughly what the quality will turn out like?
I cant recommend a print supplier to you as it would be a bit pointless as Im in the UK and you’re not.
We were in the same situation as you when we first ever needed to get some large fromat printing done, didnt have a clue what to ask for …… but rang the suppliers and they were really helpful and very informative.
😀
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normally ask.. but most printers should be accepting the PDF format with Press quality settings or PDF/x-1 settings.
Good thing about PDF is that you can see your output in the PDF before passing it on, this way you can see any mistakes that might have cropped up or colour corrections.
If they don’t support PDF then I suspect I would dump that printer and move on to the next.
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thanks for the advice will see how i go!
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quote Dave Rowland:normally ask.. but most printers should be accepting the PDF format with Press quality settings or PDF/x-1 settings.Good thing about PDF is that you can see your output in the PDF before passing it on, this way you can see any mistakes that might have cropped up or colour corrections.
If they don’t support PDF then I suspect I would dump that printer and move on to the next.
Dave, do you print from PDF’s yourself? can you set them up so they are as good to print from as full size tif files etc?
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There are many advatages for using PDF files, but only the postscript encoded part of the file will enlarge to any size.
Any images used in the PDF file must be set at the maximum output size, the image DPI that is required by the printers i.e 300 dpi or 72dpi etc.
A photoshop eps all set at the finished output size is just as good as a pdf for most sign work printing.
The big boys in the printing industry – , books magazines etc love PDF as there are usually no font problems, and all the wotk is usually customer generated so it is the customers fault in case of problems.
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