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reflective decals that somehow are not that visible on police cars

gabagoo

New Member
I have a client asking for this effect. I have seen the police cars with this vinyl, but have no clue how it is done? They really are hard to see and somehow they match the paint....sort of like a ghost look

anyone know how this is done?
 

Gino

Premium Subscriber
Do you have some samples or specifics in mind ??

We've lettered a few black cars with black reflective and unless you are in the right light on the right angle, you can't tell it's lettered. At night, it's a whole different story. It's almost like an UN-mark cruiser by day.... Mean Machine at night.
 

Z SIGNS

New Member
White reflective on a white background or black reflective on a black background will do this for you
 

Marlene

New Member
do you have any examples of this? a photo woul help. like Gino said, the black reflective on black blends in depending on how the light hits it and maybe the white would too but I don't think of it as a ghost like look.
 

gabagoo

New Member
I used to think it was just white reflective on white paint, but lets face it...white reflective is referred to by many as silver so that is not it. I have seen the cars and know that there is no way just white on white...it actually matches the colour of the car somehow. I wonder if the cars is sprayed after the reflective is put on with some sort of transluncent off white which covers everything. I wish I had a pic to show, but cant find the effect on google
 

signcrafters

New Member
I've done some stuff similar to that on an Edge using a halftone pattern on white reflective.

The transparent foils can do some weird and cool stuff too.
 

Doyle

New Member
I'm trying to find my post on this from a few years ago.... I posted some pictures of a ford explorer that we did this way, it is navy blue and we matched the paint color with printable reflective. Turned out really well, you can't even see the graphics in the day time. I took two pictures of it, one with the flash turned off on my camera and one with the flash turned on, where you really see the difference.
 

SightLine

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Unprinted reflective on a white ambulance with and without a flash.... At many angles you cannot see the stripe at all but's not perfect since bare reflective is not exactly white. We have done black on black as well which does dissappear even better. :thumb:
 

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gabagoo

New Member
I bet whoever has the contract has matched a print on white reflective so close to the stock white used on the cars.... To do 3 or 4 vehicles for a customer, I don't think it is worth the effort
 

visual800

Active Member
When i was doing the police fleet for our city, they just got the new camaros in and said they did not want the bold graphics on them I was doing and asked what I thought would be "hidden but seen" I said do black reflective on the black cars! i though if anything it would scare the hell out of someone at night. i think it would have kicked ***!
 

Browner

New Member
I bet whoever has the contract has matched a print on white reflective so close to the stock white used on the cars.... To do 3 or 4 vehicles for a customer, I don't think it is worth the effort

You're waaay overthinking it. I'm fairly certain it's just white reflective vinyl on white cars and Black reflective vinyl on the black/dark blue cars. What detachment in particular are you using as your reference? I know for a fact the OPP is just 3M black reflective.

Looks like Toronto uses a similar effect on their cars, but I'm going to guess they're using a different brand, as the black tends to look more brownish/goldish.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/stealthgraphics/

I did a few special order type things for our local police... more or less experimenting with black reflective, and the effects we could get off of it. One "trick" was for the hash marks often seen across the back bumpers. We printed translucent red stripes onto black reflective vinyl. On a black bumper, it barely showed up during the day, but at night with oncoming traffic, it would reflect a brilliant red/white/red/white hash pattern.
 

TyrantDesigner

Art! Hot and fresh.
just as others have said, just use a similar color and you're fine. Cops in this town have been doing it off and on for a few years ... black on black or it's a cmyk color printed onto white with a subtle gradient to give it depth but not obtrusive.

Did a few work trucks with white reflective on white trucks, worked pretty well ... white is slightly off ... until the truck gets covered with a slight layer of road grime ... then you can't tell it's there until your headlights are pointed at it.
 

Pat Whatley

New Member
You know, this whole thing just really irks me. Why in the heck are the police trying to f'ing hide? Why are they trying to pimp out police cars? Why do they feel the need to go all yahoo and faux badass?

Morons with guns.
 

Joe Diaz

New Member
You know, this whole thing just really irks me. Why in the heck are the police trying to f'ing hide? Why are they trying to pimp out police cars? Why do they feel the need to go all yahoo and faux badass?

Morons with guns.

I agree with you on the hiding part. I think we all know why they really want to hide, but I mean come on.

As far as pimping out their cars... I hope this continues, we get a lot of business from our local police, county sheriffs and many of the depts in surrounding communities because of this..... now that the prison doesn't do the graphics that is. :thumb:
 

gabagoo

New Member
I agree with you on the hiding part. I think we all know why they really want to hide, but I mean come on.

As far as pimping out their cars... I hope this continues, we get a lot of business from our local police, county sheriffs and many of the depts in surrounding communities because of this..... now that the prison doesn't do the graphics that is. :thumb:


I can't say for sure, but up here how can a cop hide when the car is a Crown Vic? Only cops drive anything so hideous!!!!

I have seen these cars up here and I am insistant that it is not just white reflective on a white car.... The 2 colours match almost 100%, and anyone in this business knows that white reflective is not really that white.

I am going to drive over to the cop shop and see if one is there and take a close look. Hopefully I don't get arrested.
 

James Burke

Being a grandpa is more fun than working
They're incognito here also. Along with the matching reflective, they're using ultra low-profile LED gumballs on rooftop, or LEDs mounted in the uppermost portion of the interior window glass in both front and rear. It's amazing how intense those LEDs can be for no bigger than they are.

I think they're thinking that they'll catch more offenders if they're unaware of police presence.

JB
 
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