As a designer, transferring computer graphics from the screen to the wall can be challenging. Adhesive vinyl, a versatile material used by printing experts for tackling interior and exterior design challenges, is a highly common material that translates perfectly with today’s trending aesthetics. This blog post will give you a brief overlook on how vinyl can be used to overcome your design challenges and why it’s used so popularly.

So What is Adhesive Vinyl?

When someone says “vinyl”, most people immediately think hipsters and records. Imagine those records melted down, mixed with color and pressed less than 1mm thick into large rolls of media, with an even thinner sticky coating on the back. That’s adhesive vinyl. What makes it great to use? It’s fast to print, fast to install, and totally fast to uninstall.

Where and When to use Vinyl

When you need a logo on a window, on a door, on the side of a building, use vinyl. Think of vinyl graphics as industrial stickers that can stick any flat surface. Like stickers, vinyl comes in different qualities. Depending on the type, your graphic will stay up for 3 days or 3 years so it’s great for temporary or long-term uses.

 

Printed Vinyl

Any photo, any image, you can print it out and stick it on a wall to create amazing atmosphere and branding. The only limitation is how creative you are willing to get. Below we can see how Ubisoft used vinyl to create a fake brick room for a video game release party, then projected light onto it, and filled the room with props.

Cut Vinyl

If you know how to use vector graphics, then mastering cut vinyl will be easy. Cut vinyl, is made using a vinyl plotter that can read vector paths and cut them into absolute perfection. Below, see how the DeYoung Museum printed a psychedelic pattern on vinyl, then used vector graphics to cut out text.

Specialty Vinyls

When regular matte or gloss just aren’t doing it for you, there is a huge range of specialty self-adhesive vinyl to create effects similar to those of other materials. Specialty vinyl products are transparent, perforated, metal, frosted, textured and holographic. Below we can see an image of how Lyft used a holographic vinyl to create a graphic that interacts with light for an interesting background logo. To view

From the Printer to the Designer

We hope this short blog post helped you learn more about the possibilities of working with self-adhesive vinyl. Knowing what material is right for the job can be a puzzling and risky decision. That’s why we think it’s important for designers to have an increasing understanding of printing materials. If you’d like to use our services for your next project, head on over to our “Request A Quote” page for a free quote and we’ll help make your project a reality!