Wide Format Imaging

Wide-format-imaging professionals take justifiable pride in printing outdoor advertisements seen by thousands, if not millions. But doing their work the right way is only half the battle involved in outdoor advertising. The other half is the art and craft of installing vehicle wraps, sidewalk graphics, stadium signs, and other outdoor elements.

For insight into the world of outdoor installation, we turn this month to two experts who have forgotten more about installation than many of the world's installers will ever know. Al Chieco, president of Ardsley, NY-based Application Unlimited, and Rob Ivers, president of Raymore, MO-based Rob Ivers Inc. have a combined six decades of experience, have both done extensive training of up-and-coming installers and are both integrally involved in their respective organizations granting certification to installers.

Practice Makes Perfect

Both Chieco and Ivers come by their insights through long experience. How long? Put it this way: Both were installing vinyl way back when Carter was in the White House, disco was in its heyday, and double-knit polyester was still a fashion statement.

Chieco's Application Unlimited was launched in 1979 as a business that installed company-identifying signage and advertising graphics on tractor-trailers, trucks, buses, and other conveyances. It remained that kind of company until 1989, he recalls. "When computers came into the industry strong, we were able to do the four-color process without a lot of prep work, and we started wrapping buses in New York City," he says. "Before that, if you had 100 trailers, it was very expensive to do the color separation."

Today, Application Unlimited handles jobs ranging from vehicle wraps to wraps of aircraft hangars and vintage tugboats floating in New York Harbor. "We wrapped an airplane hangar up in Boston for United, we did the interior and exterior of train cars, and we put graphics on the exterior of a 747," Chieco observes with evident pride.

Ivers also has a solid three decades of experience behind him. "I started applying vinyl in 1978," Ivers recalls. "For the most part, I'm self taught. Back at the start, I found myself working for a friend who had started a car windshield repair business franchise, and he and I built his company up in this area. We were constantly on used car lots and truck lots.

"And while waiting for this windshield repair fluid to dry, I started looking around for other things to do on the same lots. I saw an interest in body side striping. When that took off, I quit the windshields and went right into the vinyl."