So, if you are looking for a creative way to expand your marketing strategy, car wraps are worth your consideration. But, yes depending on the quality of vinyl you choose and the area covered in the vehicle, the cost can vary. So, you need a well-designed wrap with a clear objective to be sure that you get the best returns on the amount spent. How do you do that? Let’s find out. But before that, we’ll also tell you why car wrap advertising is beneficial to small businesses.

Car Wrap Designs – Why Are They Important in Marketing?

• Car wraps are great for strengthening brand recognition. As a vehicle with brilliantly branded wrap crosses you, it leaves an impression of the brand in you. Every impression a brand makes counts. With multiple impressions and consistency in design, a brand manages to register its name, brand colors, and visual identity in the minds of potential customers. And that’s how you get people to recognize and recall your brand. 
• Did you know that with a single car wrap design you can get up to 30,000 to 40,000 daily impressions? With a memorable design and the right route, the effectiveness further increases. And the best part is that depending on the quality of the vinyl and the response for your car wrap ad you can retain the same for months. Putting all of this together, if you look at the amount spent for several other ad formats where you have to spend based on the number of impressions, car wrap designs are cost-effective tools in marketing.  
• Targeting becomes so much simpler with car wrap advertising. For example, if you want to target people in a particular neighborhood alone, then your branded vehicles ply only on the respective roads. And they can do multiple rounds to ensure that most people in the neighborhood get the message. 
• Vehicle wrap advertising is a multi-tasker. The best part is that you can create a catchy design to suit any vehicle. So, using custom wraps on your delivery vans will be one way to make the most of your resources. 

To know more about the benefits of car wraps and the different types of wraps to use, check out our other blog here. 

Now, let’s look at some of the common design mistakes that brands make in car wrap advertising. 

Car Wrap Design Mistakes to Avoid

We wanted to go over the design mistakes first because learning from the mistakes other brands make can save you a lot of time. And also help you start strong when you take up your car wrap design project. So here are some mistakes to avoid:

Ignoring the placement of the ad 

Placement-related pitfalls are perhaps the most common in vehicle wraps. Even a beautiful design can become a joke if the placement is not right. Take a look at the below example and you will know what we mean. 

The warped headshot in the above image is enough to break the effect. You might have a great vehicle wrap design with a clear message, legible fonts, and brilliant colors but if you do not design keeping the placement in mind, then this is what happens. 

Ignoring the layout 

The above example shows what happens when everything goes wrong. First, there is the wrong placement. This design would have looked fine on a single door. How can you avoid such design fails? 

Understand the placement first. And based on this, plan the layout of the design. This includes positioning of the text and the graphics in the design. On split doors, having all the text on one side of the door will be a good idea. Another will be to plan the copy and the text placement such that even when the door is opened, there are no comical inferences that can be made. For this same reason, it is best to leave the text portion of your ad on the flat surface of the vehicle where there is no bend or cut. 

Using cheap vinyl 

A beautiful car wrap design will only have the intended effect if you choose quality vinyl for the job. Just like a wrong placement destroying the whole design, cheap vinyl can dampen the aesthetics of brilliant car wrap ads. Good vinyl lasts for months or even years unless, of course, you want to change the ad. So, spending a little extra on quality vinyl is totally worth it. 

Now that you know some basic mistakes to avoid in designing car wrap ads, let’s talk about the actual design part. Here are some tips to get the ball rolling. 

4 Car Wrap Design Tips to Elevate Your Outdoor Advertising Strategy

1. Go bold with the colors 

Car wrap design is one place where you can go big and go bold. Big fonts and bold colors can easily grab eyeballs even on a crowded road. 

The road is full of cars and trucks in blue, black, and white. So, when you have to choose colors for your vehicle wrap ad, choose something that is not too common. That’s when people notice your ad. And given that this is a non-intrusive form of advertising, it will deliver the message to your customers without annoying them. 

Of course, you should prioritize your brand colors in the design. And if your brand color happens to be a very common color, play with the colors in the graphics or the fonts. Here is an example that shows how you can do this. 

Kimp Tip: Bright color palettes make the most impact when it comes to car wrap design. That said, if the rest of your marketing designs use mellow pastels you cannot deviate too much. In such cases, try creating subtle gradients or monochromatic palettes that contain your brand colors in several areas. This way, you will have noticeable colors but the transition will be gradual. 

Finding it confusing to come up with the right colors for your car wrap ads? The Kimp team is here to help. 

2. Stay away from text-heavy designs 

A car wrap is not the place to put all your emotions into words. A crisp copy makes maximum impact. Like billboards and other outdoor ads, people often encounter car wraps when they are driving or in the passenger seat as your branded vehicle passes by. In these brief few seconds, they will not be able to process lines of text and grasp the core information. 

So, for vehicle wraps, you need a brief copy. The below design shows how you can list down a couple of different things without using too many words. A simple list of the main services you want to highlight is a good detail, to begin with. 

In short, to make your design work, use as few words as possible. Got catchy one-liners that help people recall your brand? Bring ‘em on! Your brand taglines, catchphrases that imprint your message, anything that makes a strong impression will add value to your car wrap design. 

3. Cut clutter in all forms 

Visual clutter can come from various elements. We spoke about eliminating text clutter in the previous section. The next kind is the use of too many design elements like too many images. All you need is one image that instantly tells what the ad is about. 

The other kind of visual clutter could come from the use of too many unrelated colors. If you have one background color and a few accent colors for the border details and fonts the design looks good. But if there are too many colors each with a strong personality that does not align with the mood of the other colors in the design, then your design might confuse your audience. 

Minimalism is your best bet in car wrap design. Here are a few details that actually add value to your design: 

• A visual that grabs attention 
• Your brand name & logo
• Brief copy 
• CTA 

These are all the design elements a car wrap design needs to communicate your message to your customers without confusing them. 

4. Don’t forget the CTA

Even the best-looking vehicle wrap will not feel complete without a CTA. The colors, the message, and the visuals are enough to tell your customers what your brand is about. But to make your ad work harder and yield conversions, do not forget to add a CTA. 

In today’s connected world, people will be able to grab more information on your brand just by looking up your brand name on the internet. But the key is to simplify things for your customers. 

If you want them to remember your brand name and spend some time figuring out how to contact your business, then you are walking on thin ice. Instead, leave your contact info at a visible location in the ad. Or if you want them to connect with your brand on social media, make this clear. Providing your website address helps too. 

Kimp Tip: Omnichannel marketing is catching up rapidly. It is not enough to be present on various digital channels. The key is to give your customers a smooth transition from one to another. But first, you also need to focus on visual consistency across channels. 

Customers visiting your social media page after seeing your social media handle on a vehicle wrap should not feel like they are in a whole different place. So, always ensure that your car wrap designs are on-brand and coherent to the rest of your marketing designs. 

This becomes so much more practical when there is just one team who handles all your designs. That’s exactly what you get with every Kimp subscription. 

Why Work With Professionals for Car Wrap Design

Remember we spoke about the mistakes in car wrap designs earlier? Most of these mistakes can be avoided when you work with a professional. Or a design team that has experience in designing car wraps for advertising. Here are a few reasons why:

• Professionals understand vehicle templates better. So, when you tell them the kind of vehicle where the wrap would be installed they would be able to come up with a design that provides proper placement. And they can plan the design to avoid curved surfaces and door openings from sending out weird interpretations of the ad.

• Designers know the kind of colors that make the most impact, especially in an outdoor setting. This helps them plan the color palette for your wrap while also aptly incorporating your brand colors. 
• Digital designs look so much different when printed on vinyl. It takes experience to understand how colors transition from digital to print. And this experience gives designers an advantage when it comes to car wrap design. 
• Visual balance, hierarchy, and other design principles take a whole new meaning in car wraps considering the odd shapes of the surfaces where the design will appear. Designers, with their experience, will be able to do better justice to these design principles and thus create visually appealing designs that still look balanced and in line with your brand’s visual identity. 

Design Stunning Car Wrap Designs With Kimp

Car wrap designs are already cost-effective. With a design subscription, you can save a little more by combining your car wrap designs with other print and digital marketing designs. And since your team knows your brand and the visual style in the rest of your marketing designs they will be able to come up with the most brand-relevant and visually memorable car wrap design for you. 

Ready to give it a shot? Sign up for your free trial today.