Window Graphics Drive Dealership Business

Traffic Graphix (Lee’s Summit, MO) specializes in producing POP graphics for auto dealers. In addition to tent-sale banners and printed, magnetic panels installers affix to cars on the lot, it also produces numerous, inkjet-printed graphics for showroom windows.

Danielle Lehr, Traffic Graphix’s operations manager, said its installers typically prep surfaces with window cleaner, and apply soap and water. She noted, although some cities have enacted zoning codes that prevent graphics on window exteriors, they bypass them by applying the graphics on the window interiors to face outward.

Traffic Graphix fabricates it’s window graphics using Continental Grafix’s panoRama 1530, 30%-perforated, pressure-sensitive film with a semi-permanent adhesive that’s designed to endure two to three years in temperate climates; indoors, it uses Continental’s panoFilm.

Typically, the shop’s clients provide a window wrap’s design, which the shop tweaks using Adobe Creative Suite 5. Clients normally submit artwork as .PDF, .EPS or .PSD files. Lehr said customers sometimes prepare logos or imagery, but often depend on Traffic Graphix to manipulate them into cohesive, window-ready graphics.

Traffic Graphix prints its window graphics on either the HP L25500 latex-ink printer or Roland SolJet Pro III XC-540 printer with Eco-Sol Maxx low-solvent inks. Lehr said the printer choice depends on capacity or project dimensions; the Roland is 52 in. wide, and the HP 60 in. On the HP printer, it uses Onyx’s PosterShop, and Roland VersaWorks RIP on the SolJet. Lamination isn’t typical, Lehr said, because dealers’ inventory changes frequently, and these customers seldom want graphics to remain for more than one year.

To install the prints, Traffic Graphix uses a combination of felt and nylon squeegees to maneuver the prints over the windows, while towel-drying the window surface.

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“The economy overall, and intense competition in the automotive market, have been challenging,” Lehr said. “There have been a lot of dealerships shut down, which has led to a few less showrooms to outfit with graphics. However, auto dealers appreciate the value of on-premise advertising and promotion more than most industries, so we know there will be several opportunities every year to change a dealer’s window advertising.”