It used to be that to install an intricate artistic design on a car one needed paint. Wrap vinyl allowed for detailed designs but with limitations. Not the case here.
In the traditional sense, artistic and intricate designs with paint, wrap vinyl could achieve but everything had to be layered with multiple color vinyls. There was a caveat though… If you wanted any type of color grading, you needed paint. Wraps could give you plenty of color alternatives, but still no gradients, halftones or full color.
Enter Full Color Vinyl Printers
These days, many high-end vehicle wrap shops like us have at their disposal full color large scale vinyl printers. These printers allow the wrap shop the freedom to wrap a car with any design imaginable. No longer are gradients and halftones only available to paint. Wrap vinyl can now be printed in full color allowing you the freedom to create your very own “paint” wrap masterpiece. You can have a commercial print with photos of your products or your star salespeople. Or you can have a full color print of the Mona Lisa on the hood of your McLaren. A Picasso wrap? Sure, why not?
Full color printed car wraps done with high-quality vinyl printers offer the resolution to be able to mimic the look of many painting techniques, such as airbrush, brush strokes and even spray paint. Wrap vinyl can be had in metallic, allowing your prints to have a classic metal flake look. Combine some sort of complicated paint scheme with color gradients over metallic vinyl and you can achieve looks that were once impossible to achieve with anything other than paint. Maybe this is the reason some people refer to these as a paint wrap.
Why Some Call Car Wraps “Paint Wraps”
There’s probably another reason some people will refer to a car wrap as a paint wrap. This is when referring to color change wraps. The fact that a car wrap allows a car the ability to transform completely as if it were freshly painted with a new color has also helped coin the term paint wrap.
Finally, you can take car wrapping as far as you want to take it. Since you can combine different car wrap methods the options are literally endless. Think about it this way…
Let’s say you have a black Porsche 911 and you decide you want a race car look, with a colorful artwork over a base of electric blue paint. Wrap it instead and have the design printed on metallic vinyl. Then, you can overlay all the race car graphic bits like racing numbers, sponsors and racing classes over the wrap. You could even do stripes. Essentially, this will give you almost every type of car wrap medium in the books. Though let me warn you, it isn’t going to come cheap.
Video of the Design and Wrap Process of a Fully Printed Paint Wrap
At KI Studios we are at the forefront of car wrap technology. We have the equipment necessary to perform any type of vehicle wrap, color change “paint” wrap, printed or layered liveries as well commercial vehicle wraps. Given the high cost of acquiring a vinyl printer, many other wrap shops cannot offer this type of service and have to settle only for color change or layered wraps. You may not think you necessarily need printed vinyl for your car wrap, but you might be surprised at how many things can actually be printed to achieve the desired look.
Wrap in progress…
Wrap completed.
KI Studios is located in San Diego California and we service all of Southern California. We even have cars shipped to us for wraps from all over the country. If you are thinking of changing colors with paint, wrap instead. You can keep your original paint protected underneath.