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Vehicle Graphics – Anglo
As the title says, pics of my van. Let me know what you all think. Constructive criticism welcome.
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37 Replies
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Mathew,
My crit…. ship/boat is too big in relation to your company name. Tel number is too big in relation to your company name. Just needs a bit of work on layout really. When you first look at the van it does not say ‘I am a signage company’ until you look hard…Too much lettering on rear lower right…
Just needs a bit more thought. -
the main thing you got wrong is the price.
from £70?get out of here, you are degrading the industry
Peter
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Peter it does say from £70 it doesn’t say exactly what you get for £70, might only be your name & number in black and in brush script, fact is others are doing this I went past a sign place in stoke and they are advertising £65 but you know they won’t get much for their money but gets them talking to a potential customer. Perhaps Mathew could explain what £70 would get then maybe we can advise him on pricing if he needs any.
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quote Peter Normington:the main thing you got wrong is the price.
from £70?get out of here, you are degrading the industry
Peter
How am I degrading the industry exactly? Please elaborate.
£70 for just doing inside the panels on the sides and rear in a single colour, whats wrong with that?
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quote Steve McAdie:Peter it does say from £70 it doesn’t say exactly what you get for £70, might only be your name & number in black and in brush script, fact is others are doing this I went past a sign place in stoke and they are advertising £65 but you know they won’t get much for their money but gets them talking to a potential customer. Perhaps Mathew could explain what £70 would get then maybe we can advise him on pricing if he needs any.
Steve, it doesnt matter to me how much or how little you do for £70 quid,
its not good policy to advertise a cheap price and then try and sell higher prices, whichever way you look at it you are giving people false expectations.
Matthews van looks like a £70 job, and people will expect similar for that amount by implication.Peter
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quote Steve McAdie:Peter it does say from £70 it doesn’t say exactly what you get for £70, might only be your name & number in black and in brush script, fact is others are doing this I went past a sign place in stoke and they are advertising £65 but you know they won’t get much for their money but gets them talking to a potential customer. Perhaps Mathew could explain what £70 would get then maybe we can advise him on pricing if he needs any.
Any advice is welcome. After all, that’s whey I signed up.
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quote Matthew Slater:quote Peter Normington:the main thing you got wrong is the price.
from £70?get out of here, you are degrading the industry
Peter
How am I degrading the industry exactly? Please elaborate.
£70 for just doing inside the panels on the sides and rear in a single colour, whats wrong with that?
Nothing wrong with it at all, if you are making a living, but your prices are way to low, and you will soon realise that being a busy fool fool is not the best way to go,
sorry for being blunt,
but thats how I see itPeter
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Mathew,
I’m sure you know this already but…..
Nobody can tell you what to charge. You can charge what you like.
If you are finding that the majority of your customers are looking for a low cost option then continue as you are.
And, the van is a first for me, I don’t actually think I’ve ever seen the price thingy on a sign makers van before.
Gareth.
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If you have that price on a van you will be expected to do the same van with the same amount of vinyl on it for £70.
Peter is correct, you must have spent one hour weeding and app taping all that vinyl, including swapping rolls for colours etc etc, you would have spent 30mins on a layout and 35mins to fit.
Take £25 for materials and you have £45 for your time! what about paying rent and rates, what about delivery charges for you vinyl supplies?This van from £70 your making a massive mistake !from your post
£70 for just doing inside the panels on the sides and rear in a single colour, whats wrong with that?but on your van you have 3 colours ?
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However, I must add that there is very very good money to be made in this industry sometimes, for comparatively low effort, so you could aim high too.
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quote Peter Normington:quote Matthew Slater:quote Peter Normington:the main thing you got wrong is the price.
from £70?get out of here, you are degrading the industry
Peter
How am I degrading the industry exactly? Please elaborate.
£70 for just doing inside the panels on the sides and rear in a single colour, whats wrong with that?
Nothing wrong with it at all, if you are making a living, but your prices are way to low, and you will soon realise that being a busy fool fool is not the best way to go,
sorry for being blunt,
but thats how I see itPeter
What should I be charging? I hope I haven’t offended you Peter. I’m Still learning all this. I didn’t realise i was way too cheap. I’m not tryin to degrade the industry at all.
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I am with Peter on this.
What are you getting out of 70 quid to do this van.
Take into account your time to chat to customer, cut sign (client obviously provides perfect artwork and layout to suit application for this price?-unlikely!) -weed and get app tape on, clean van apply, invoice and drive to bank to deposit you HARD earned £70??!! That’s not even taking into account your materials and machinery costs, etc…
No not for me!! I do not want to be a busy fool. And the repeat business argument does not work here either because the client will be expecting the same price points from you, you would need to churn out huge quantities to make this realistic. -
quote Peter Normington:quote Steve McAdie:Peter it does say from £70 it doesn’t say exactly what you get for £70, might only be your name & number in black and in brush script, fact is others are doing this I went past a sign place in stoke and they are advertising £65 but you know they won’t get much for their money but gets them talking to a potential customer. Perhaps Mathew could explain what £70 would get then maybe we can advise him on pricing if he needs any.
Steve, it doesnt matter to me how much or how little you do for £70 quid,
its not good policy to advertise a cheap price and then try and sell higher prices, whichever way you look at it you are giving people false expectations.
Matthews van looks like a £70 job, and people will expect similar for that amount by implication.Peter
It might not be good policy but a lot of businesses do it, myself I do not, I lost a job last week because a truck driver owner could get his cab done for £75 elsewhere. 😮
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quote Richard Urquhart:If you have that price on a van you will be expected to do the same van with the same amount of vinyl on it for £70.
Peter is correct, you must have spent one hour weeding and app taping all that vinyl, including swapping rolls for colours etc etc, you would have spent 30mins on a layout and 35mins to fit.
Take £25 for materials and you have £45 for your time! what about paying rent and rates, what about delivery charges for you vinyl supplies?This van from £70 your making a massive mistake !from your post
£70 for just doing inside the panels on the sides and rear in a single colour, whats wrong with that?but on your van you have 3 colours ?
I see where you are coming from. I thought it was a good idea at the time. Now I see it’s not, thats defanately coming off asap. What about the rest of the van?
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Shock! I agree withe Peter!
Personally I wouldn’t go to see a customer for £70 let alone sign his van!
Can I ask what overheads you have..ie. plotter premises or (no offence) are you running a plotter from your bedroom and buying 6 month vinyl of freebay?
Sorry but someone had to ask!
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Would agree with comments made about the boat your name and the phone number but the back for me looks like you need to learn a bit about design Matthew. Your name and phone number are centre justified and then some of the text is right justified and some left justified. I would look at buying a good book on design like Mastering Layout by Mike Stevens
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Steve, customers have the choice, if they can get it done cheaper elsewhere,
that is their perogative, but the thing is are they comparing like for like?
it is your job to sell them the product they want.
I can do £75 vans all day long, but it is hard to find 10 £75 jobs a day, so I prefer to do 2 £300 jobs, which uses less materials and less effort 😀Matthew, listen and learn, you have already started the process, uksb will help you.
Peter
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quote Peter Normington:Steve, customers have the choice, if they can get it done cheaper elsewhere,
that is their prerogative, but the thing is are they comparing like for like?
I can do £75 vans all day long, but it id hard to find 10 £75 jobs a day, so I prefer to do 2 £300 jobs, which uses less materials and less effort 😀Matthew, listen and learn, you have already started the process, uksb will help you.
Peter
I’d rather do 2 £300 jobs as well.
I think the £70 was a bad idea, I didn’t really think.
I’m here to listen, I really want to make a go at this.I work from home at the moment and I mainly use oracal vinyl.
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Some sound advice there and good to see you are taking it constructively.
The layout wants a bit of work, and I too would recommend Mike Stevens’ book. I read it nearly 20 years after starting making signs and I learned plenty from it.As for pricing, a fairly standard livery like yours would get about £150 around my way.
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It would be interesting to see other peoples take on this design.
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quote Andy Gorman:Some sound advice there and good to see you are taking it constructively.
The layout wants a bit of work, and I too would recommend Mike Stevens’ book. I read it nearly 20 years after starting making signs and I learned plenty from it.As for pricing, a fairly standard livery like yours would get about £150 around my way.
Andy i think 150 sounds spot on for a simple job like that. I think i remember you saying you was in wellingbourough (sorry for my spelling!) which is not far from me (Bedford), so it’s good to hear my price expectations are about correct.
At £70 you’d have to sign up every van in your area to make any money. But at least you’ve posted here and realised your mistake, so it is a positive.
Just leave the price off, otherwise people will be saying ‘i thought you said 70 quid’ and you’ll constantly find yourself justifying your prices.
Liam
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Does my previous post have a file attached?
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Nope. No file.
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Forgot to scale the size down, it was too large to upload 🙄
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quote Liam Pattison:quote Andy Gorman:Some sound advice there and good to see you are taking it constructively.
The layout wants a bit of work, and I too would recommend Mike Stevens’ book. I read it nearly 20 years after starting making signs and I learned plenty from it.As for pricing, a fairly standard livery like yours would get about £150 around my way.
Andy i think 150 sounds spot on for a simple job like that. I think i remember you saying you was in wellingbourough (sorry for my spelling!) which is not far from me (Bedford), so it’s good to hear my price expectations are about correct.
At £70 you’d have to sign up every van in your area to make any money. But at least you’ve posted here and realised your mistake, so it is a positive.
Just leave the price off, otherwise people will be saying ‘i thought you said 70 quid’ and you’ll constantly find yourself justifying your prices.
Liam
That’s a good point to remember, if they come in expecting a £70 job you are not going to get much more from them, you are setting the bar very low and if the customer feel deceived just to get him in the shop then you are starting on the wrong foot.
Besides, without ripping anybody off you should always be trying to get the most you can for each job, advertising a price like that will only limit your ability to up sell and increase profits.
Surely you don’t want to be working your a$$ off for years doing £70 vans and not grow, just because overheads are low does not mean you should charge less than the going rate.
Good luck and keep working at it.
cheers
Warren
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OK, a quick 5 minute go.
Colours….your choice.Not keen on the boat, but that’s just me.
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Matthew did you do any research in your local area with regards to pricing ? A good idea is to phone a couple of local shops and ask them for a quote or get someone to do it for you. I actually went and introduced myself to some of the other sign companies locally, didn’t get a good response from them all but some were and still are very helpful.
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Great discussion – A lot of very good and valid points raised. Andys design is just brilliant and demonstrates how well an understanding of Mike Stevens "Mastering layout" teaches the principles of good design.
Mathew – I think you’ll do well in business as a signmaker :thumbsup:
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nice one Andy,
you missed out "sign your van like this for just £300!"Matthew, see the difference twixt you design and andy’s,
its all about doing a design that is just that bit different,
it adds value, (wish I had the inspiration that others have)
Peter -
Hi Matthew
When i first started up a few members pointed me in the direction of the price it sign guide. A very handy book if u have just started up! but remember it is a guide! everybody has different overheads etc! good luck the learning curve is massive! but am sure you well enjoy it 😀
Martin
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Thanks everyone for all the comments and advice, I really appreciate it.
Andy – that design looks awesome. It amazes me how quickly some people can come up with a design like that.
I’ve been working on a new design as I’m going to redo my van.
What do you think to this new one? Not to sure as to the positioning of the logo on the rear doors.
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I personally don’t think there’s too much wrong with that…
a couple of tweaks I would make would be to lift your name and little logo man off your website block…maybe an inch and a half to two inches off
I would also tidy up the text on the back door by putting them in a different order…
Window Graphics
Industrial Signs
Vehicle Livery
Shop Signs
BannersI would try and keep your text on the side a bit more consistent….your bullet point text is very condensed and your phone number is extended
I’m not overly keen on the colour combination either but that could just be a personal thing
Best of luck……you really have come to the right place if you are prepared to listen and I think you might just have passed the entrance exam that Peter set you :lol1:
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Looking much better, similar views on bulletted list and split name away from web address (plus raise it all up on the side).
I don’t like a condensed font for the bullet points – just becomes a blur from any distance.
I actually think the phone number is too big on the door, I would reduce it and raise it up.Matthew, good idea to get yourself off to the Sign Show at the NEC in April.
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S’better than the first one though isn’t it. The overall form is good, just the minor tweaks suggested above.
One thing you should have (and it’s free!) is the almost obsessive habit of looking at every sign and signwritten van you come across and committing to memory what appeals about it. You’ll be amazed at how these things come to mind when you are faced with designing in the future.
Nothing wrong in using other people’s work as inspiration. -
It looks better than your 1st attempt and thank God you took the price off.
You will be thanking those who suggested it.
I haven’t lettered a van for under $500 in 10 years.
You are selling advertising and an image, it’s more than just stickers.
Love….Jill -
Thanks for all the replies and thanks for all the advice, it is much appreciated.
I am going to the sign show in April, it will be good to see all the new technologies out there and all the different sign systems in the flesh.I’ve made the changes as suggested, what you all think now??
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looks much better Matthew, I struggle a bit with the big block with text under the name though, just that i have to almost strain to see it properly (on a 22" screen!), it might also be worth using a land line number too, if you work from home then do as i did and put in a second line, costs about £100 to be connected and my bills are about £20 a month (when the kids aren’t using it) as i make most of my calls on my free mobile minutes!
rest of it works well i think.
as Peter so eloquently put it, you do need to bring the price up some. I can see what you were saying about "single colour and only inside the panels", we could make easy money that way but, it’s always worth offering a good design, maybe a 2 or 3 price options and briefly explain the differences to the customer, as i said to someone the other day, you’d be surprised how many times the customer will go for the higher end job than be seen as being cheap!
you have to remember that your work is not just your customers image, more importantly it’s yours!
all the best dude,
Hugh
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