A wrap is a high quality adhesive vinyl film that is applied to the surfaces of your vehicle. This temporary coating carries a colourful pre-printed advertisement, logo or other graphic design.

The practice is now pretty widespread - you may have seen it on taxis, buses, lorries, commercial fleet vans, trains and even aeroplanes.

The art of wrapping a vehicle is a very labour intensive one, as there are no machines available to help with this. All of the design is broken down into smaller segments – in such a way that the joins, wherever possible, fall in the natural recesses and creases of the vehicle bodywork giving an apparently seamless picture/message/design over the entire outside of the vehicle. These pieces are then printed to near photographic quality and positioned by hand on to the vehicle by one of our skilled operatives.

There are many brands of film these days that claim to be wrapping films, and in all fairness they are all good for some purposes, the skill is knowing which film will be best for the contours of YOUR particular vehicle, so the first important part of wrapping a vehicle is to decide on which film to use.

The next major task in the process is to “tweak” the design. Most designers, with the best will in the world, come up with spectacular designs which look great on a two dimensional computer screen, but in reality we usually have to break the design down into smaller components and rebuild it to fit a three dimensional vehicle. The end result is the designer loves the end job, the customer is happy and nobody quite realises what has gone on behind the scenes to achieve it.

Once the design has been tweaked it is then sent down to the print room for one of our large or super-wide printers to output it on the already chosen film.

If the design is for a very short term display – maybe only one day, or a photo shoot – it will then be fitted. However if the wrap is longer term the print will then be laminated. This can take one of two forms, either a matching optically clear film is applied over the print or it will be liquid laminated, which in everyday terms is very similar to varnishing. Both of these processes will enhance the colour depth of the print and protect it from harmful UV rays plus make it all harder wearing for regular washing etc.

At the end of the campaign or when the vehicle is returned to the leasing company, or sold of course, the wrap can be removed relatively easily by skilled people, leaving a vehicle that has been protected from the elements for up to 4 years. Some wraps will undoubtedly last longer than this but the film manufacturers will not guarantee them for longer, and conceivably it could have an effect on the removability of the film.