vehicle graphics: fga windscreens

[eddie cotter]

nice one john, welcome to the boards, nice job on the van!
try to reduce the size of the image before you load it , as it will load faster on the boards! you will find all the advice & help you need right here
on uksg!!!!!!!!!! regards eddie

[Bob Gilliland]

John,

Welcome to the UKSG boards! When you get some time, stop by the Say Hello forum to introduce yourself and give us some dirt on your “real” jobs and life in general; only looking for details we can take to the tabloids! 😮 😉

You might want to also look over this past post by Mike “The Sign” Brown called [TIPS AND TRICKS] Posting better pictures! Good information in there about making posted images a bit more browser and low bandwidth “friendly”. Hope you didn’t mind, but I lifted your image and “tweaked” it using some of the information contained in that article (and a little extra 😉 ).

Again, welcome aboard and thanks for showing some of your stuff. Cupboard, shed, closet, doesn’t matter. What matters is how the person uses the tools, not where the tools get used.

Cheers!! 😛 😛

[Martin Pearson]

Hi John and welcome to the boards, as Eddie and Bob have said you will get a lot of help here if you ask. You must have quite a large cupboard under your stairs, I have a cupboard under my stairs but I couldnt get a small van in it no matter how hard I tried.
Come to think of it you must have quite a wide front door as well.

[Robert Lambie]

cheers for helping with johns image issues guys…:D

ok john your van… i have to say i would be delighted if this was only my tenth van… 😀 😀
you and the wife should be well pleased. well done mate.
the fitting of that red vinyl panel on the bonnet and side couldnt have been easy… bonnett especially!
did you apply wet or dry…? im guessing wet..
the overall design is very good. you have carried the theme of the graphics well all over the vehicle. giving a kind of a corporate image… even if that wasnt the intension… bit like the new RAC vehicles you see out on the road….
constructive critisism:
well like i said you have carried the theme well and i do like what you have tried to acheive so i wont try and correct you. what i can say appears to be wrong is the fonts you have used. if a differnt font was used then
the overall appearence of the image would have much better impact… and only with the tweak of a print style…
FGA on the head board is slightly difernt to the sides… a tip! never stretch or distort a logo once it has been created. dont alter the spacing of the letter or anything for that matter. if the logo has to be bigger, then scale it up… or decrease by scaling down…
the font used seems to be compacta bold or eurostyle bold condensed… im guessing compacta!
there is no real reason for you using this… then again maybe this is the companies font?
if not then next time try using an open font when you can… tall letters do not necessarily mean it can be read more easy… slim and open can be read easier than bold and condensed from a distance!…
i wont rabble on taking pot shots because the design is very good and i think you, like eddie cotter have a very promising future in this business… theres lots to learn beleave me…
if its not design its application tecniques.. if not that, its sales.. or its vinyl quality and make… if not that blah blah blah…
cuboard for a workshop… we all start someplace! if you run before you can walk…and then fall. you hit the ground much harder if your carry more… 😉 😀

[Mike Brown]

Hi John

If that was my tenth-ever van I’d be wanting to stick it up on a forum such as this and feel proud about it too!

Full marks to you and the missus’ for doing this kind of work off your own back and, with your old plotter etc., you seem to be going about it in a sensible way too.

As for the finer points, well – as Rob said it’s a good job overall with a few little bits that could be addressed for next time – but they’re of no real consequence. I do like the whole front-end arrangement very much, and although the secondary texts along the side don’t use the available space too well the one thing that shouts at me is the (well what looks like in the photo anyway) mis-alignment of the ‘F’ on the side panel to the other two letters of the logo…just out of interest did you use one big panel of colour and lay the white stripey letters on top or did you cut the lettering out of the red panel and then apply it to show the white of the panel through?

anyway – nice one John (and Mrs John?) and the customer should be more than happy with that. 😉

thanks for sharing…more please!

more soon

[John & Dawn Roddick]

Thanks for all your comments. This was quite a challenging job for us but the customer was delighted – he obviously doesn’t have your eagle eye Mike. Had some problems with the reflective white vinyl as the cutter couldn’t cope with it’s weight so some characters had to be cut one at a time – hence the misalignment. Also the stripes were cut by hand because our software couldn’t give us the effect the customer wanted. The red vinyl was put on wet, then the white reflective on top.

Thanks again