Why Vehicle Wrap Color Verification is Critically Important

At a recent trade show, Mutoh, our partner in the ColorVerify project, featured a vehicle wrap demonstration that underscored why color verification prior to printing vehicle wraps is so critically important.

As I watched the demos performed by our new friend Elmer Martinez of GMedia Wraps, it occurred to me that the multiple panels of a wrap are not all printed simultaneously. In fact, sometimes the media and/or ink will need to be changed part of the way through printing all the pieces of a full or partial wrap. So how do you ensure that your crossovers between panels will not only register but color match as well?

Enter the need for color verification

A full vehicle wrap consumes a vast quantity of media and ink. Having to reprint all or part of the job because of color crossover problems can quickly eat up all of your profit in a competitive marketplace like we are facing today.

The solution is to run a color verification test prior to starting the production of the run and then to re-run the test if a media or ink change occurs during the production run. This ensures that the printer is producing color the same at the beginning of the run as at the end.

You can also uncover unwanted changes in media or ink. While it should not happen, from time to time different lots of media and ink do vary in color. Most of the time that variation is minor and not significant in the vehicle wrap business. But sometimes the variation can be enough that a color crossover ends up with a noticeable difference. We co-produced a video with Mutoh to illustrate such a difference.

And what about the re-run jobs?

When you are fortunate enough to land a fleet contract, the client will expect each of the vehicles you wrap to look the same. More and more brand owners understand the importance of reproducing their brand color consistently in all mediums.

Not only will you be expected to wrap new additions to their fleet to match the ones you did two and three years ago, you’ll also need to be able to repair panels on older vehicles in the fleet. For example, if a vehicle you wrapped two years ago is in a minor accident and one of the door panels needs to be replaced, can you re-print and re-wrap that door with the confidence that the color will still crossover?

With ColorVerify you can. Just run a color verification test print prior to the production run and ensure that you’re printing to the same color baseline you set two years ago. Even if you are not, you have only used a few inches of media to determine you might have a problem.

Now instead of printing the entire door panel, you can dig into the problem, find a solution and then print the production run having saved both time and materials to preserve your bottom line.

For more information about ColorVerify please contact Mutoh or your local Mutoh dealer.

For more information about our ProofPass product, which offers similar functionality with handheld instruments, please visit ProofPass.com and sign up for a free trial or contact us.