Cut lettering, printed decals, partial and full wraps, and one-way vision for the glass. We print the vinyl at our Ravenhall workshop and our own installers apply it, so the vehicle that leaves looks like the proof you approved.
Vehicle signage is printed or computer-cut vinyl applied to a vehicle’s panels and glass. It scales from a phone number on a ute door to a full colour-change wrap, and it is the cheapest advertising a trade business ever buys: paid for once, then seen at every job, every car park and every red light for years.
Made by Melbourne Trade Signs, a large-format print and signage company on Unit 6/43 Orbis Drive, Ravenhall VIC 3023, in Melbourne’s west. Printed in-house and installed Australia-wide. Phone 0415 743 691.
The economics are hard to argue with. A signwritten vehicle works your suburb the whole time it is parked outside a job, and the cost per year of a lettering kit is less than a single month of most paid advertising. The difference between signage that wins work and signage that wallpapers a vehicle is usually restraint: a name, what you do, and a phone number big enough to read across a street beats a collage every time.
We print and cut vehicle vinyl at our Orbis Drive workshop in Ravenhall, and the same team handles application. That matters more on vehicles than anywhere else, because curved panels, rivets and recesses punish sloppy work. One vehicle or fifty, artwork stays on file so the next vehicle — or the replacement door after a scrape — matches exactly.
Vehicle work is really five different products, and the right one depends on budget, how long you keep your vehicles, and how loud you want to be.
Computer-cut letters and logos in solid colours, applied straight to the paint. The classic tradie kit: business name, trade and phone number on the doors and tailgate. Cheapest option, sharpest edges, and single colours resist fading better than anything printed.
Full-colour printed and contour-cut graphics for logos with gradients, photos or detail that cutting cannot reproduce. Laminated for stone-chip and wash resistance. Usually combined with cut lettering for the contact details.
Printed vehicle vinyl covering defined sections — commonly the rear half, the tray sides or the bonnet — with lettering carrying the rest. Most of the visual impact of a full wrap at a fraction of the cost, because you are not paying to wrap panels nobody reads.
Every painted panel covered in printed or coloured cast vinyl. The vehicle becomes the artwork: edge-to-edge branding, photographic backgrounds, or a complete colour change. The most expensive option and the only one that delivers a moving billboard.
Perforated film that carries print on the rear window while the driver still sees out. Extends artwork across the back of a van or wagon without blinding the mirror view. Detail on our one-way vision page.
Templated artwork per vehicle model, produced and applied on a schedule that suits vehicle availability, with specs held on file. New vehicle joins the fleet, we fit it to match. Door swap after a prang, we reprint that panel alone.
The industry default is to sell the biggest wrap the budget allows. Our advice runs the other way: spend on legibility first, coverage second.
Whatever the level, the same three things sell work from the side of a vehicle: what you do, where you do it, and a number to call. If a design squeezes those to fit a slogan, the slogan should go.
The bread and butter. Sparkies, plumbers, chippies, landscapers: cut lettering on the doors, the trade and licence number where it is expected, and a phone number on the tailgate big enough to read from the car behind. Toolbox and canopy faces are prime flat space that often goes to waste — if your ute has a canopy, sign it.
Vans are the best canvas in the fleet: big flat panels, high sides, and a rear that sits at eye level in traffic. Lettering plus a printed decal set covers most service businesses. Food and delivery vans lean on printed graphics, and one-way vision across the rear glass finishes the job without losing vision.
For sales fleets and site vehicles the job is consistency: same artwork, same placement, same colours across every vehicle, documented per model. We template each model once, then produce kits on demand as vehicles come and go from the fleet. Removal and re-application when leases roll over is part of the service.
The full-wrap end of the market, where the vehicle is the shopfront. These are design-heavy jobs and worth doing properly: we will tell you which recesses and panel gaps will swallow text, and where the serving-window and equipment cutouts actually land before the artwork is finalised.
Not sure what it should look like? That is normal. Tell us the trade and the vibe — clean and corporate, loud, classic — and we will lay out options and proof them on your vehicle’s panels until you are happy.
Vinyl goes onto clean, sound, factory paint. Lettering kits are applied in hours; wraps take days and involve trim removal and post-heating. After application, give the vinyl a week before high-pressure washing, then wash by hand or keep the pressure washer at a sensible distance from the edges. Avoid automatic brush washes — they are what peels edges back. Do that and the typical service life is five years and often well beyond.
Cut lettering and decals in a quality cast or polymeric vinyl typically give five years or more of presentable service on a vehicle that lives outdoors. Full wraps are usually quoted in the five to seven year range in cast vinyl.
Those are typical figures, not guarantees: a vehicle parked in the sun all day, pressure-washed hard or driven on gravel wears its graphics faster. When the signage finally tires, it is removed and replaced without touching the paint underneath.
On factory paint in good condition, no. Vehicle vinyls are engineered to come off with heat and patience, and the paint under a wrap is actually protected from stone chips and UV while the wrap is on.
The caveats are honest ones: resprayed panels, aged or peeling clearcoat and filled repairs can lift when vinyl is removed, and we will tell you if we see a risk before anything is applied.
For most trades and service businesses, cut lettering and a printed decal set on the doors, tray and tailgate does the job for a fraction of the price of a wrap.
A wrap earns its money when you want the vehicle to change colour, carry photographic artwork, or read as a moving billboard for a brand. Our honest starting advice is to spend on clear, readable contact details first and coverage second.
Usually, yes, using removable vehicle vinyls, but check the lease terms first. The graphics come off with heat when the vehicle goes back, and on sound factory paint removal leaves no mark.
Keep in mind the shadow effect: paint under vinyl is shielded from UV, so on an older vehicle a ghost of the graphics can remain where the surrounding paint has faded.
Both, and there is no minimum. A single ute for a sparky starting out gets the same care as a fifty-vehicle fleet program.
For fleets we hold the artwork and specifications on file per vehicle model, so vehicle number twelve matches vehicle number one even if they are done a year apart.
Cut lettering and a decal set is typically applied in a few hours once the vinyl is produced. A full wrap is a multi-day job: panels are cleaned, some trim comes off, the vinyl is applied and post-heated, and the vehicle should then rest before hard washing.
Tell us when you can spare the vehicle and we will schedule production so the off-road time is as short as possible.
Kitting out a trade business? See tradie signs for the full kit, or what vehicle signage and wraps cost.
Want signage you can take off after work? See magnetic car signs.
The same computer-cut lettering, on shopfronts, walls and boats as well as vehicles. Supplied on application tape if you want to fit it yourself.
See the detail →Perforated window film that prints on the outside and stays see-through from the inside, for vehicle glass and shopfronts.
See the detail →Die-cut stickers for equipment, toolboxes, helmets and packaging, printed on the same vinyls in any quantity.
See the detail →Browse the full list on our A–Z of everything we print, or see how this fits into signage in Melbourne.
Tell us the vehicle, what you do and how loud you want it. We will come back with options and a price inside two business hours.