Sail Graphics

We've had a few discussions about this in the past, but I want to know if anyone has any experience of using stickers that are sprayed ?

I'm getting some sponsership form a site I've helped to set up and the logo we want is this:



Now one provider in the UK (Grapefruit Graphics) say they can do it by spraying the graphic onto clear vinyl. Now I've never used this before, all my previous graphics have been laser cut vinyl. Anyone got any ideas or pointers

Cheers

Simon

Simon,

I don't have experience with 'sprayed' graphics, but have some with an alternative to laser cut vinyl:

I got a small graphic on my main sail in 3M auto wrap - which is white vinyl with the design printed on it.

I know this stuff has good UV Resistance - we have a big graphic on the front of RV which is 10 months old and holding up well. My concern was how well this film would adhere to a sail and hold up to rolling, flogging etc.

So far so good - it has been on about 5 months and is still looking good with no lifting or bubbling.

Next year I will be trying a bigger graphic. With 3M Autowrap you can print photos - opening up a world of possibility vs. cut vinyl.



Chris.

I do not know much about sprayed graphics.

But I assume it just like a home printer. Instead of printing onto paper, it will print on to vynil.

Obviously on a much bigger and better scale.

I know Jakes graphics are sprayed, I am sure he will chime in with information.

How do the put graphics on spinnakers? It seems like vinyl graphics would be too heavy and would not like being pulled through a snuffer ring.

I'd like to only make a comment here.

This thread about sail graphics is very important. Sailing is finally getting some attention it deserves and many of both professional sailors and ameture sailors are finding eagar sponsors to make use of these giant floating canvasses.

This is all good news as far as I can tell for it will both bring needed capital to our local fleets as well as make the advertisers happy to grow their businesses.

I hope that we all can exchange information on what works well and what is not worth wasting time and effort on. This can be a boon to our fellow catsailors if we can develop a good way to offer advertising space to our friends and sponsors. This subject can also help those of us who simply want to boast or otherwise display our interests on the sails we own.

I think that this exchange of graphics ideas and experiences is a very good and appreciated topic. I am glad to see that this commercial portion of sport is gaining momentum.

GARY

http://www.photosails.com/

http://www.cat-sail.co.il/modules/coppermine/albums/userpics/10005/hobie_tiger_coke.jpg

http://www.photosails.com/video/Untitled.wmv

Gary,
You are SO right. For years I have been saying that sails should be utilized as billboards on the water. It works for everybody, because it draws attention to sailing as well as to the advertisers on the sails.

Some may see this as professionalism and taking away from the purist "corinthian" view of the sport. But I don't see having sponsored sails as having anything to do with professionalism in sailing. Professionalism has to do with the sailors, not the boats.

For instance, we have started a Hobie Wave fleet at Put-in-Bay, Ohio and another one in Key Largo, Florida. Both are small tourist communities. One of our planned initiatives for creating more interest in sailing is to get local businesses involved by having each of the boats in our fleets "sponsored" by a local business that will have its graphic on the sail of the boat it sponsors.

Our races are done in close to shore to generate spectator interest in sailing as well as exposure for the advertisers.

Vinyl graphics have been the primary way to put graphics on mains and jibs up to this point, but I am excited about the possibilities offered by "photosails."

Will using sails as billboards take away from the credibility and integrity of the sport of sailboat racing in the minds of the viewing public? Will they see us as nothing more than a glorified version of a person on a street corner wearing a sandwich board? Will they think we are just shills who have sold out to commercialism?

I don't think so. The public is already accustomed to seeing advertising pretty much everywhere. It is probably only the sailing traditionalists who might be opposed to the advertising. And they are not the people who need to be attracted to sailing and racing.

We need to try new things to attract new people!

All good stuff.

Don't have the (considerable I assume) budget for Photosails yet.

Any one from the UK got any other providers I might approach for qoutes ?

Also,

please take a look at www.web.co.uk

My boys did their own graphics on their spinnaker.
They hung the sail up and projected their picture onto it. it was all done in thick marker pen.
People frown at letting kids 'draw' on £500 sails but they get trashed in a season anyhow. The kids [young and old] enjoy having stuff on their sails. I had Bart Simpson mooning on my first inter 20 kite - its quite a good feeling to get to the windward mark first and hoist that to the rest of the fleet!

Paul

Krylon spray can paint adheres to vinyl sticker material permanently. There is even a new version for spraying on plastic that works well. I imagine it would be permanent on dacron or spi fabric but not on mylar. who knows, maybe it does bond w/mylar. standard airbrush proceedures and cans of krylon work great for custom designs. although it maybe somewhat time consuming.

Well, when someone here in the states will put some graphics on my spinnaker for a decent price, pm me!

I'm not sure what those guys mean by "sprayed". It's probably a minor language difference. There are a few different ways to put color on vinyl. I have a couple of machines that thermally burns an epoxy (or wax) ink into the vinyl. It's relatively permanant and can stand up to 3 to 5 years of full UV exposure. There are other machines that use special solvent based inks to dye the vinyl (this is what the automotive wraps are done with). These machines are very expensive (the machine that did my bow graphics is what would be used to do car wraps and is a $400,000 printing press!). Krylon (or any spray paint) adheres well to vinyl and is useful to do low cost fades and effects. There's really nothing special about "car wrap" vinyl other than the machines used to color it are usually very large scale and very expensive. The vinyl is pretty much the same stuff used on the smaller scale stuff. For solid color graphics, it makes sense to use layered cut colors of vinyl instead of using an expensive printing process.

Practically any vinyl adheres very well to hulls and mylar sails. It will adhere acceptably to Dacron sails as longs as they are pretty clean and you use a high grade vinyl. Premium vinyl will adhere to a spinnaker but it's heavier than the spinnaker cloth itself...so it's not really advisable to put vinyl on a spinnaker.

Most spinnaker graphics you see are airbrushed (I don't know what kind of ink/paint they use). The companies that do spinnaker graphics typically will cut a paint stencil on a special low adhesive vinyl, apply the stencil to the spinnaker, then air brush in the color(s). Once dry, they remove the stencil.

Scooby, that graphic is simple enough that I would probably recommend simplify it a little more by doing a solid drop shadow (or removing the drop shadow - it doesn't translate well when viewed from the reverse side) and doing it in layered solid color vinyl...it's a little more labor intensive but it's much cheaper than printing.

That brings up another point...think about what the graphic will look like from the reverse side of the sail. If you want it to be completely legible, consider putting the graphic on a large neutral color rectangle so that the opposite side will not be largely affected by light coming through the sail. If the graphics are to go only on one side (which is usually the case), the side you want to put them on has to do more with the kind of racing that you do. If you primarily do buoy races, I recommend putting the graphics on the starboard side of the sails because most photography is made from the outside of mark roundings. If you're doing a coastal race (like the Tybee 500), put your graphics so they face the beach more often (port side in this case). If you're just putting the graphics on one side or the other, think about the layout to see what they will look like from the opposite side. While you don't want to worry about them being fully legible (because the text will be reversed), try to lay them out so they can at least be read. If you have multiple colors, the way the vinyl is layerd can keep it from being read from the opposite side at all.

P.S. I've never heard of "laser cut" vinyl. All cut vinyl is usually done on a machine with a rotating razor blade that has it's pressure adjusted so that it only cuts through the vinyl and not the backing paper. Once cut, someone manually goes back and removes the vinyl not needed in the graphic (process called "weeding") and then applies an application mask tape over the whole thing to maintain spacing when the backing paper is removed for application.

Jake,



Good point, but planning to have a graphic on both sides offset you you always have a grphic to the camera!

Jake



Now I asked about this, and was told "yes, they are laser cut and then the programming does some of the weeding itself. When we did a run of small Tyresmoke.net stickers (approx 300x150mm) they saild they were a PITA as the "Auto weeding" could not cope with the small "www.tyresmoke.net" at the bottom of the graphic and so they are not interested in doing them again..

WOW! Autoweeding and laser cut! damn, IM going to have to start investigating.

Did you by any chance of the world asked the name of the machine they are using?

And in my opinion weeding is the worst part of the job. But autoweeding, sounds sweet!!!!