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Scott Shepherd
02-10-2008, 9:28 AM
I've done vinyl lettering on a couple of newer Chevy Silverado trucks lately (most recent being yesterday) and it's a pain in the butt. The Silverado emblem is about 14"-16" long and comes right into almost the middle of the door, really messing up the ability to put a large company name and logo on the side of the door. I was forced to scale down my graphics almost 1/2 size to make it fit and look right. The customer didn't like it, but when I gave them the options to chose from (all by having a photo of their truck and putting them image on it on my computer), they agreed that there was no other option than to make it smaller.

So I did one, no problem, then did another one yesterday and when I installed it, I stood back and said "It's crooked". I got out the tape measure and triple checked everything and it's dead parallel with the bottom of the door. The window area is massively angled, so I couldn't use that as a reference line.

The more I looked at it, the more I thought something was wrong. The thing that make me say "it's crooked" was the emblem. The logo wasn't right with the emblem. So I put a tape measure on the emblem and sure enough, it's 1/4" out over the length of it.

The passenger side looked correct and the emblem was pretty darn straight. I make sure my work was right and then decided that I'll tell the customer on Monday that the emblem is not straight.

Was that the right thing to do? Sounds simple enough, but wasn't sure that I wasn't missing something.

Joe Pelonio
02-10-2008, 9:40 AM
The horizontal "lines" of side panels on vehicles, whether it be the doors, windows, or van ridges, are not always parallel top and bottom. In fact on most vans the bottom is parallel to the ground but the top goes lower toward the rear. Often it's impossible to have the lettering look perfectly straight because of this. I pick the horizontal "line" that the lettering is closest to and use that when neither top and bottom is horizontal, or if the lettering is not too close will use a level. This should be explained to the customer when you see the vehicle, and measure for the lettering.

I had one where the customer said it was crooked, and I explained. He insisted that I redo it using the top line as the measuring guide. It was worse,
so he paid me to do it a third time, back to the way I had it originally.

In the case of an emblem, yes, it might actually be crooked from the factory, but them it might look better if your vinyl was crooked too, so it matches to the emblem.

Joe Pelonio
02-10-2008, 2:25 PM
Here's a couple of examples. On this one, left, I aligned the lexus logo with the bottom contour line which is pretty horizontal, the top contour is lower at rear than at front end. You can see how it drops to the front on the right pic.

http://members.aol.com/bisjoe/vans.jpg

On this one, because of the drop at the rear, I kept the lettering toward the front where it's more horizontal. The indention below is horizontal so the cities listed look nice and straight.

http://members.aol.com/bisjoe/vehicle.jpg

Scott Shepherd
02-10-2008, 6:42 PM
Thanks Joe, I was looking for the "line" on this truck, but darned if it had any I could find :) Just a bunch of choppy little poking out panels all over the place :)

Here's the truck. Check out how intrusive the emblem is.

Click to enlarge
81317

Joe Pelonio
02-10-2008, 6:47 PM
In a case like that, I'd either measure off the bottom of the window or the emblem, whichever the text is closest to. Ideally they should both be parallel!

Scott Shepherd
02-10-2008, 7:51 PM
Thanks, I started the first truck with using the bottom of the window. Wow, that was not good. It has at least 1" rise in it. It didn't look bad relative to the truck door, but the emblem is not parallel to the bottom of the window. So it highlighted the vast difference between the emblem and the vinyl. Believe me, it was not pretty :) Good thing it was applied wet, or I would have been making another one :)

It's that darn emblem that's killed me. I always thought you do exactly what you mention, you pick a line, and work with it, or if there are multiple lines, you can split the difference. However, that emblem just kept messing all that normal logic up.

The emblem is parallel to the bottom of the door, neither of which are parallel to the bottom of the window.

Scott Challoner
02-10-2008, 9:48 PM
Not that I know what I'm talking about, but here's an idea...

Could you put an oval or some other shape around the graphic? I think this would draw the eye to the oval rather than the "line" created by the window or the emblem. I realize you can't always mess with a customer's logo but maybe you could add a subtle curved line or something. Of course you still have to worry about that emblem.

Just a thought.

Joe Pelonio
02-10-2008, 10:50 PM
Not that I know what I'm talking about, but here's an idea...

Could you put an oval or some other shape around the graphic? I think this would draw the eye to the oval rather than the "line" created by the window or the emblem. I realize you can't always mess with a customer's logo but maybe you could add a subtle curved line or something. Of course you still have to worry about that emblem.

Just a thought.

Yes, that's a great way to do it. even put the lettering at an angle, where it gets more attention. As you said though, the logo may not allow that. The best thing is to carefully examine the vehicle and suggest a design
that works well with what you have. In the case of this Silverado I doubt anyone would have noticed a crooked emblem until measuring during installation

Matt Meiser
02-10-2008, 10:57 PM
Is your customer open to removing the logo? They come off pretty easily with a hair dryer and a soft plastic scraper and Goof-Off. You sign guys probably have something even better. I removed all the lettering/logos from my Colorado in less than an hour, first time I've ever dome something like that and I was taking it slow. There was some very minor marking of the clearcoat which buffed right out with cleaner type wax.

Scott Shepherd
02-11-2008, 8:24 AM
Nope, I asked about removing the emblem. No way, no how from them.

Also, their logo is quite specific and has fairly large document defining it, so any modification of the logo wouldn't be allowed.

One funny point is I showed it to the guy on screen and he had me move it over some, which made it not centered in the door at all. I said "Remember, on the other side, the logo will be facing the other way, so some of the pieces of the logo will fall in different places", then I showed it to him by mirroring the photo of the truck. He said "Well, that's not right, you need to reverse the logo. It needs to look the same on both sides.

I spent 15 minutes to explain that if you put the logo on the other side, then it would be facing the opposite direction. I had to explain if you had 1...2...3...4....5 on the drivers side, then the 1 would be closest to the front, where as on the other side, the 5 would be closest to the front unless you made it read 5...4...3...2...1.

He really didn't like it and wanted me to fix it. Fix it? Huh? Funny thing is, they have about 15 trucks and it's already like that on every truck. He just never noticed it until I mentioned it.

Doug Bergstrom
02-11-2008, 8:49 AM
Between the emblems and the body moldings on these new trucks we have less and less space to put graphics. We have gone to the rear doors on ext and king cabs as well as putting graphics down the sides of the bed. This looks great and add to the value of the graphics. Once we did one this way everyone has been asking for bed graphics.