Need Help Design tips for curved rear window - perforated vinyl

[SignsByNicholas]

Hey friends,

I've made a handful of vehicle rear window decals using perforated vinyl and the result can look a bit odd due to the curvature of the window. Does anyone have tips on dealing with the curvature of the window?

Should I distort my design with a curve to offset the curvature of the rear window? I'm doing a VW CC sedan for a real estate agent.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Nick

Signs by Nick LLC

303-918-8568

 

[bob]

Make a paper template of the window. Just tape some paper down over the widow and trace the outline with a sharpie. Then lay the template flat on a table or the floor, lay a 16x24 framing square on top of it reasonably square to the outline and take a picture of it by standing right over it minimizing parallax.. Import this picture into whatever software you're using. Draw a rectangle around the framing square. You may have to rotate the image a bit to get the framing square square with the rectangle. Map the image into the rectangle you just drew. Make the mapped image 16x24. Unmap the image and you have a full size template of the shape of the window when it's flat. Now adjust your design so that it fits into the template curving it as necessary.

Now you have a design that will properly fir the window. No matter how strange it looks it will fit the curves as exactly as you fitted the design to the curves. I've been doing exactly this for years and no matter how weird the final product looked laying on a table, it never failed to go in the window perfectly.

 

[shoresigns]

Make a paper template of the window. Just tape some paper down over the widow and trace the outline with a sharpie. Then lay the template flat on a table or the floor, lay a 16x24 framing square on top of it reasonably square to the outline and take a picture of it by standing right over it minimizing parallax.. Import this picture into whatever software you're using. Draw a rectangle around the framing square. You may have to rotate the image a bit to get the framing square square with the rectangle. Map the image into the rectangle you just drew. Make the mapped image 16x24. Unmap the image and you have a full size template of the shape of the window when it's flat. Now adjust your design so that it fits into the template curving it as necessary.

Now you have a design that will properly fir the window. No matter how strange it looks it will fit the curves as exactly as you fitted the design to the curves. I've been doing exactly this for years and no matter how weird the final product looked laying on a table, it never failed to go in the window perfectly.

We just use pre-made vehicle templates. As long as we don't put anything too close to the edges of the window, we've always been fine.

Don't try to curve your artwork to cancel out the curvature of the window. It'll only work from one viewing angle and it'll look worse from all others. When the viewer sees the back window, they can see that it's curved, so it looks unnatural for the artwork to not follow the curvature.

 

[SignsByNicholas]

We just use pre-made vehicle templates. As long as we don't put anything too close to the edges of the window, we've always been fine.

Don't try to curve your artwork to cancel out the curvature of the window. It'll only work from one viewing angle and it'll look worse from all others. When the viewer sees the back window, they can see that it's curved, so it looks unnatural for the artwork to not follow the curvature.

We just use pre-made vehicle templates. As long as we don't put anything too close to the edges of the window, we've always been fine.

Don't try to curve your artwork to cancel out the curvature of the window. It'll only work from one viewing angle and it'll look worse from all others. When the viewer sees the back window, they can see that it's curved, so it looks unnatural for the artwork to not follow the curvature.

So you purchase a vehicle template package?

 

[SignsByNicholas]

Make a paper template of the window. Just tape some paper down over the widow and trace the outline with a sharpie. Then lay the template flat on a table or the floor, lay a 16x24 framing square on top of it reasonably square to the outline and take a picture of it by standing right over it minimizing parallax.. Import this picture into whatever software you're using. Draw a rectangle around the framing square. You may have to rotate the image a bit to get the framing square square with the rectangle. Map the image into the rectangle you just drew. Make the mapped image 16x24. Unmap the image and you have a full size template of the shape of the window when it's flat. Now adjust your design so that it fits into the template curving it as necessary.

Now you have a design that will properly fir the window. No matter how strange it looks it will fit the curves as exactly as you fitted the design to the curves. I've been doing exactly this for years and no matter how weird the final product looked laying on a table, it never failed to go in the window perfectly.

Thanks for the detailed instructions, Bob. I'm not 100% clear on what you're suggesting, but I'm interested in how you do it. Is there a tutorial or something I can reference on YouTube?

 

[CSOCSO]

if you do text CURVE it! i have done gazillion of window perf and i curve them all and they look perfect. The only problem is if you put the text off center because besides curving you also need to tilt it. It's easy to mess it up. Every single time i see a really curvy window wrapped by someone else they all have messed up texts so do not tell him not to curve it.
if the text is in the middle I always curve it and i have ZERO customers complaining about the text being bad. They all like it and I like it better also. One time I had to make a template. Just used regular masking tape. Started to lay it down flat on the rear windows and traced the edges of the window. I had to do a text off center and a logo next to it. I made it PERFECT with curved and tilted text and tilted logo. The only direction it looked curved if you looked at it from the side but then the text is unreadable anyway.

 

[boxerbay]

I measure the glass. if the center of the bottom sits higher than the sides I bend the text in the opposite direction the same amount of distance. so when the panel is flat the text looks like a smile but on the car it is straight.

 

[myront]

Add a "smiley face" to the design. Basically curving everything into a smiley face look. When applied it "flattens" out. If you have the time the whole pattern idea works too. Done that a few times when designing stripes for the hood of Mini Coopers. I don't use templates for the simple fact that there are too many variables between models. Get your design nailed down then when the vehicle shows up it has body molding that wasn't accounted for. We only use photos of the actual vehicles. We have the customer bring the vehicle in for half a day to photograph and take key measurements.They can then take it and bring it back after the design is agreed upon and schedule a date.

 

[SignsByNicholas]

I measure the glass. if the center of the bottom sits higher than the sides I bend the text in the opposite direction the same amount of distance. so when the panel is flat the text looks like a smile but on the car it is straight.

Thanks for your reply. How are you determining how much to bend the text? You said you bend the text "the same amount of distance."

 

[bob]

Thanks for the detailed instructions, Bob. I'm not 100% clear on what you're suggesting, but I'm interested in how you do it. Is there a tutorial or something I can reference on YouTube?

Not everything requires a tutorial or a video. Attend: Most vehicle rear windows are a three dimensional object. Since you layout and produce signs in two dimensions you have to flatten the subject window into two dimensions so that you can see what shape to make your sign so that is will properly fit when it's applied. The simplest, and perhaps the only, way for most regular beings is to tape a length of paper over the actual object. I have a roll of 24" light paper that I use for this. On windows that are taller than the 24" paper I tape two pieces together. Once the window is covered with the paper take a sharpie and draw the outline of the window on the paper. Since virtually all windows have a distinct edge it's a simple task. When you remove the paper from the window and lay it flat you have an exact replica of the widow if it were placed in a large hydraulic press and flattened out.

Now get an image of your template into your computer. The easiest way to do this is to take its picture. Adding the framing square to the image of the template gives you a precise reference for scale.

Once in your computer, scale the entire image so that the image of the framing square is 16x24. The easiest way to do this is to draw a rectangle around the image of the framing square and map, power clip, mask, or whatever it might be called in your village, the entire image into this rectangle. Then make the result exactly 16x24. Now when you extract the original image form the mapping, masking, or whatever, it will be actual size.

Now you can shape your layout to fit this image. When applied to the tree dimensional object it will fit perfectly.

This is one of those things that's easier to do than to talk about.

 

[d fleming]

Red arrow = amount of curve. Use a straight edge for baseline and a ruler to measure distance from base to window. My wife usually holds one end of tape measure for straight edge. Same applies to getting curve for windshield graphics .

 

[CSOCSO]

I usually just do a %7-10 curve