It's a Wrap

radren

Hi everyone,

I have been asked by lots of people about the wrap I recently got on my trailer. I thought I should post under one topic and make it easier for anyone who wants some information about the process/costs/etc.

You need to find a local wrap installer. There are different grades of the vinyl material they use to wrap. Have them explain what they are using and the life expectancy of each grade. You can get a glossy finish or a flat matt finish. To find someone who does wrapping, Look up graphics and vehicle wrapping. Graphic art places that do boat/car/trailer wraps is the easiest way to look it up online. I would check out their work before I give them any money. Send them some pictures of your trailer. If they seem unsure, find someone else.  Find out the costs for each part of the process before you take your trailer to them. Partial vs complete wrap. I didn't see the point of having the top done. The cost of a complete wrap was about 2800 dollars. I had the two sides and the back panel (CS-S model back opens up) done. It was about 1800 dollars. 900 for printing panels and 900 for installation. Should last 5-7 years, longer if covered when in storage. It is the UV rays that fade the colors. It simply fades to black over time. The vinyl material is very strong and completely protects the surface and your trailer's surface is like new when you peel the vinyl wrap off. 

The graphics place will need to measure your trailer $$ about 200-250 dollars upfront. Then you pay for someone to complete your design and format your files to Vector or eps files. Some of the graphic places include these costs under one price. Some make you pay as you go. 

First Step: Find the Art work you want and create the design you want. This isn't hard if you or someone you know can use a simple photoshop program or even draw it out by hand.

Second Step: Formatting files (eps. files or vector formatting) You need this done by a graphics artist, so your art work looks the same when it is blown up to fit your trailer and the colors remain the same

Third step: Graphic place to print the panels and install.   You can also have the panels printed and install yourself if you want. An option to ask your graphics place about

Fourth step: Installation.  I removed the trim ( really easy but had very odd screws, used goof off to clean off residual sticky stuff under trim) and washed the trailer before I took in for installation. Took 1 day

Fifth step: Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy

I am always happy to answer any questions you have about the process. Below is the original art I incorporated into the design, and the trailer before, during and after wrap installation

I live in southern california and used Full Sail Graphics in Huntington beach. they were Great!  My graphics guy is Alfonso Mercado and I can supply his email. He was the liasion between the technical people at full Sail and helped make the whole process technically painless. 

the mouse house and me

jkjenn

Nice write-up!

gilbutler

Thank you, Jenn.  While I'm not in the market for this, I was really curious.  You are timely, clear and complete, as usual.  Yours looks great!

radren

Hi Jenn,

Thanks. I consider it great praise coming from you. Your write ups and the many things you publish are such an inspiration to me. I hope to start a blog," the mouse house and me", once I actually take the mouse house out and about. Maybe this will be one of my first offerings. I really had to research the whole wrap vs custom paint thing but once I realized the limitations of paint vs what you could do with a wrap there was no looking back. With a wrap, anything you can think up, anything you can print you can have done. It was kinda daunting at first, like too much on the menu and you can't make a decision. However I had steamboat willie on the brain and a great graphics artist to make it all come together. I LOVE my mouse house. I am so happy with it now, just sitting in the side yard. I can't imagine how much better it will be on the road. Now I just have to conquer my fear of popping off the hitch again! 

the mouse house and me

SunnyTAB

OMG I love it so much! We are huge Disney fans, and my husband's starting his second round as a Disney employee later this month. We're actually going to an art show this weekend and love the artist so much that we may talk to him about turning some of his characters into a wrap. Great job!

radren

Hi SunnyTAB,

So nice to meet another friend of Mickey's. I live 5 minutes from Disneyland. I go all the time. What does your hubby do at the happiest place on earth? What characters does the artist do? I have a graphic artist friend, he did the vector art on my wrap. Just email me if you need any help. I used a local place, in Huntington Beach called full Sail graphics to do the wrap. They were so helpful and just excited as I was about the design. They got the panels printed in just a few days and installation only took one day. They even sent me a picture during installation. Tell Peter I sent you. He was great. They took almost as many pictures of it as I did. It is just amazing what you can do with a wrap compared to a custom paint job. Anything you can imagine is possible with a wrap.

I am going  to work on a SoCal rally for spring. I just got my trailer and haven't really taken it out so I don't know what is good locally yet. I plan on doing some meteorite watching trips to  Joshua Tree in 2015. The drive is not too bad, about 3 hours and so beautiful out there. I will post a schedule for the meteorite showers and more information once I get out and explore some. 

Have a happy and joyful holiday.

ren

the mouse house and me

SunnyTAB

Oops - sorry to confuse you, but my husband actually works up here in their Seattle office. (Disney, ABC, and ESPN have their technical offices up here) This time he'll be under the ABC umbrella but we still get our Disney perks! 

Regarding the legal stuff, I wouldn't worry too much about it. One day you might get a letter in the mail, but that would take a lot of effort on their part. Mostly you're just giving them more free advertising.

The Artist we like is named "Henry" and he's a muralist here in Seattle. We'll actually meet him on Saturday at a show. He does big goofy-eyed animals. 

radren

Hi SunnyTAB,

So sorry to hear you aren't local but very cool you have all the Disney perks!  I actually asked about the copyright issues and was told if it was for personal use I was okay. Never mess with the MOUSE, Ha. I will look up Henry if he comes to Disneyland. They have lots of visiting artists working here in the park sometimes. 

Montalaskan

I was just wondering about what it would take to do a wrap for a T@B. And here's the thread! Very cool!

Just a few ideas to throw out there for people wondering what would look cool as a wrap:

• If you are a big fan and a tailgater, turn your T@B into the helmet of your favorite team. 
• Sci-fi fan? Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica art would be sweet.
• Match the look of your tow vehicle
• Camo for a hunting vehicle
• Submarine
• Advertising for your business
• Make your T@B a woody!

I've got an extensive graphic design background, so if anyone needs hints on what would or wouldn't work well as vector art or help converting something to vector, I'm available.

radren - I wonder if your printer would make the templates they made for your artwork available to save some measurement time/money. Just a thought. Obviously, it'd be different depending on if a T@B is a clamshell or regular.

jkjenn

I love the wrap ideas here: http://www.southdownsmotorcaravans.co.uk/tab/tab_art.php

jkjenn

This is also a fun idea

radren

A really good graphics place wants to measure each T@B as it comes in because of door, window and vent placements so the design elements are placed where you want them on the panels. I was so lucky to find Full Sail Graphics and benefit from their experience with difficult wraps. They made sure mickey was not chopped in two by the door frame or a window. The installers did an amazing job, even sending me pictures as they were working on my T@B. A custom paint job is just as expensive and very limited as to what you can do. You can do anything you can think up and vector with a wrap. I LOVE my T@B and how it looks just sitting in my side yard. 

radren

Sorry, I forgot to mention you can have the design go over the windows, the material is perforated and you can see out of it but it does limit some of the light you get thru the material into the trailer. Of course that does cost more. I like a lot of light so I opted out of continuing the design over the windows. It looks like the wrap on a bus, covering the entire bus, windows and all. 

radren

As long as you are not a business or using it to advertise your business you are safe. Disney is okay for personal use. I would be very sure about what you use before you plaster it on your trailer. However it is not like paint and you can always take it off. As always, it would just be more money$$$ Ha.

Nomad

rarden - Not sure that's necessarily 100% true - unless you're an intellectual property lawyer of course :-)
Without permission the owner could still get you for infringement in spite of the "personal use" clause if it's big and out in public like a wrap graphic would be. In practical terms they probably wouldn't go through the trouble though. And as you state, if they did, they'd probably just make you remove it and you'd be out the dough you spent. However, if you had to hire a lawyer, that'd be a different matter and bigger expense. Copyright law can get murky when it comes to "fair use" and "personal use".

Nomad

Small printers get in trouble on occasion for scanning/using copyrighted materials.
The biggest copyright infringers I've seen over the years are salespeople and their PowerPoint presentations. Many big companies I've worked for require their sales people to have their graphics department do the presentations - two reasons, to keep it professional and within the corporate guidelines and the graphics dept. knows the copyright rules.
One of my big clients had one of their remote plants go rogue and do their own brochure locally. One, it didn't follow corporate standards and infringed someone's copyright. 15K brochures ended up in the shredder. Obviously that didn't go over well with headquarters.

W2ontheroad

This is so cool 😎,  thinking of doing a wrap on my TAB CSS-320.  Thanks for this information!

dragonsdofly

@W2ontheroad, congrats on your first post. Nice to have met you at üCamp 18. -Denise sorry about hijacking this thread.