White vinyl to edge on white painted door

[Phill Fenton]

If I’m printing a fade to white – and it’s going onto a white van anyway – I always print on clear so that it ens up being the same shade of white

[Martin Gray]

Yeah Phill would depend on your vehicle as you might require it to be a wrap vinyl.

[Chris Wilson]

Hi Martin,

I think there is a number of variables in your question. I would say the largest is customer budget. Some folks just want quick and cheap.

Certain vinyls also have boundaries as to what they can and cannot do, thus putting the customers budget up to do the job correctly.

As sign writers it’s our job to provide the customer with the best solution, but if customer only wants to spend £100 and best option is £300 then it’s just not going to happen, but we all have to eat so there is no pointing turning that away. Just have to work with it best we can.

Paint also fades over time and gets dirty, so it would depend on age of vehicle also regardless of colour.

[Robert Lambie]

The best option is as Phill suggests. Print onto clear.
If it is a wrap, then print onto a clear wrap film.
The down side is if you do not have a clear to print to. However…
Customers must understand the possible extra costs incurred when they want to have a specific look or finish.

A simple way around it is to show the customer the customer what you mean by sticking a bit of white vinyl on the van and say due to you wanting the print to blend out to nothing. It will blend out to this colour of white which you can see is whiter than your van.

Dependant on the print coverage, it is also possible to wrap the entire door or panel to the edge. so the white colour shift isn’t as apparent when stops/starts in the middle of the door/panel.

if the blend is just a shadow of a logo or text, then give the option to drop the shadow and lose the blend.

[Simon Worrall]

TBH I dont really think it is a big worry, even if the whites do not match.
Here is a vehicle we did a couple of months ago. The vinyl is 3m 180 and the vehicle colour is much creamier than that, and it was not a new vehicle. We left an inch of white border on each side of the swoosh, (to reduce distortion when we applied it), and you can hardly see it unless you really look for it.

Simon.

[Robert Lambie]

I often say that rather than try hide something, making it more apparent and meant looking, makes it easier to accept. This is a classic example Simon. I don’t mean i think it looks better than tight to the colour cut though… 😆

a bit like contour cutting an intricate shape for a van. rather than have all the whispey fine details, its better to just form a white halo type outline around the whole shape, it looks neater and will last longer when pressure washed or car washed. hard to explain… 😆

[Martin Gray]

Thanks guys. I just wasn’t sure if you tell your customer about the difference before hand or not. But as you said it depends on price.

Martin