A vehicle wrap is like a brand-new, blank canvas for your vehicle. You can keep things simple with a solid color or design something totally complex and unique; the possibilities are endless! Whether you just want a fresh new look for your car or need to brand an entire fleet of trucks for your business, vehicle wraps can do the trick.

Vehicle wraps are more than just aesthetically pleasing though; they’re also a great opportunity for cost-effective and low-maintenance advertising! Research shows that car wraps can make 30,000 to 80,000 impressions per day, and because they last approximately 7 years on average, they’re a great return on investment for your business.

With so much room for creativity, it can be hard to know where to begin when designing a vehicle wrap. That’s why we put together this list of vehicle wrap ideas with examples and tips to help inspire your vehicle transformation. When you’re ready to get started on your own vehicle(s), contact our team for the best Portland Oregon vehicle wraps, graphics, decals, and more!

20 Stunning Vehicle Wrap Ideas

Below are fifteen of our favorite vehicle wrap ideas to help get your design ideas flowing:

1. Bring Your Brand to Life

If you’re advertising with a vehicle wrap, it should be in line with your company’s branding. In order to generate brand awareness, your logo should be visible from all sides of the vehicle and the colors used in the wrap should match. You don’t want someone to notice your wrap and not associate it with your business! At Pacific Truck Colors, we can take that logo and put it right on your vehicle. This can increase your brand recognition and help your company become well-known in its community.

2. Keep it Simple

We’ll start simple with solid color vehicle wraps. Vehicle wraps can last for seven years or more and the cost is comparable to a high-quality paint job. If you plan on wrapping multiple vehicles with the same wrap, it will cost much less than it would to paint them all individually. In addition to having a long lifespan, vehicle wraps provide you with more color options, are faster to apply than paint, are easy to maintain and remove, and can be easily customized.

3. Don’t Shy Away From Color

Have you ever heard of color psychology? Color on vehicle wraps not only helps attract visual attention but also can evoke specific emotions. So you should incorporate bold colors to catch peoples’ eye but also think about your company’s brand personality and what feelings you would want viewers to associate with you. For example, green is a color that is strongly associated with nature and the natural world. Red is one of the most eye-catching colors on the spectrum, but it can be associated with danger or aggression.

4. Leverage Custom Color Vinyl Wraps

Perhaps you’re looking for a more subtle wrap on your vehicle. When creating your branding, typically there are some colors that become associated with your brand. Instead of putting your logo on the vehicle you can have it wrapped in your company’s color or colors. Some companies even have a color designed for them. Companies like Servpro have a custom green color on their vehicle which is meant to be more visible in the dark and makes it easier to spot in general. Customizations will make your company vehicle stand out and get you the attention your company needs!

5. Add a Matte or Metallic Finish

If you want something a little more interesting than a plain color, yet still on the subtle side, a metallic or matte vehicle wrap can help your vehicle stand out. These types of wraps can provide a classy and polished look. It can be expensive to achieve these fancy finishes with paint, so you can save money by going with a vinyl wrap instead.

6. Fill the Frame

Filling up the entire vehicle wrap with one specific pattern or scenery is another popular and eye-catching idea that still looks simple and not too busy. For example, galaxy vehicle wraps have become more and more popular in recent years for purely aesthetic purposes. This is also a popular advertising technique; picture a background filled to the brim with images of your most popular product.

7. Get Artsy

A vehicle wrap is essentially a blank canvas, so why not get creative with it? As an example, a Canadian artist named Jeroen Vermeulen decided to display one of his abstract art pieces on his car with a custom vehicle wrap. Now, his art gets more views on the road each day than it could in most galleries or museums.

8. Create an Illusion

If you can create an optical illusion with your vehicle wrap, you’ll certainly get noticed. For example, the Copenhagen Zoo worked with a design agency to create this award-winning bus wrap, which makes it look like a giant snake is wrapped around the bus and is crushing it slowly. It was a creative way for the zoo to get a lot of attention on a relatively small advertising budget. 

9. Design a 3D Wrap

Make your vehicle stand out with a three-dimensional wrap. This creates the illusion of depth and can feature objects, textures, or even realistic-looking elements that appear to pop off the vehicle’s surface.

10. Be Creative With Your Vehicle Choice

If your business allows, get creative with the type of vehicle you design the wrap or graphics for. A professional vehicle wrapping service will be able to custom fit the wrap to nearly any shape and size car, truck, bus, van, or even a trolley, so the sky’s the limit! Different vehicles can help portray different messaging. For example, a learning institution might choose to wrap a school bus, while a landscaper would be better off adding graphics to a custom service truck.

11. Use Your Vehicle Doors

You should think about the placement of the doors and windows of your vehicle and how they will affect the design of the wrap. See whether you can use them to your advantage in a creative way. You can cover them up with vinyl wrapping in order to create a cohesive look. As an example, National Geographic Magazine had this bus wrap created with shark jaws printed on the double doors, giving the illusion of the bus passengers being swallowed up as they enter.

12. Get Silly

Studies show that humor is a great way to amplify your advertising, so why not get a little funny with your vehicle wrap design? If you can make a passerby laugh during their morning commute, they’ll be sure to remember you. Take some inspiration from a popular van wrap idea used by plumbing companies: a vehicle wrap that makes the driver look like they’re sitting on a toilet. Sure, it might embarrass the driver, but it’s guaranteed to draw attention!

13. Call out the Competition (Cautiously)

Some companies take the humor a step further and get a little cheeky with their competitors. You may have heard about the FedEx truck wrap that went viral and made it look like the trucks were carrying two smaller UPS trucks. You probably wouldn’t want to do something so overt, but you get the idea. 

14. Incorporate Visuals

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so don’t underestimate the power of adding some enticing visuals to your vehicle wrap. This is an especially popular design choice among food and beverage businesses. For example, this delivery truck wrap we designed for Edible Arrangements clearly explains what the company does with one beautiful photo, rather than a bunch of text. It’s not only eye-catching but mouth-watering!

15. Futuristic Design

Give your vehicle a futuristic look with a design inspired by science fiction. Incorporate sleek lines, metallic finishes, and high-tech elements to create a wrap that captures the imagination.

16. Geometric Patterns

Incorporate bold geometric patterns into your vehicle wrap design. These patterns can add a modern and dynamic look to your vehicle, capturing attention and making a strong visual statement.

17. Don’t Forget the Text

As fun as these ideas are, don’t get too caught up in the design and forget about the text, especially if you’re advertising with your vehicle wrap. You want to keep the text simple, visible, and clearly legible. You should also avoid busy or hard-to-read fonts and be strategic about the placement of the text for maximum views. Popular locations for text include the rear end and sides of your vehicle.

18. Do More Good

What do you want your company to be known for? A great vehicle graphic can help create a positive public image for your company. Take this van wrap we did for the Oregon Lottery as an example of how some careful messaging and imagery can help shine a positive light on your company.

19. Invite Viewers to Engage

Perhaps the main goal of your vehicle wrap is to pique the curiosity of viewers and direct them to learn more about your business. If so, a simple yet effective way to do this is to include links to your business’ website and/or social media accounts on your vehicle wrap. Make sure to place any web addresses or usernames in a clearly visible location with easy-to-read text — and the easier they are to remember, the better.

20. Make it Interactive

Make your vehicle wrap interactive by including elements that invite viewers to engage with it. This could be a QR code to scan or a unique hashtag that encourages people to take photos and share them online

These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg! Brainstorming ideas for your car wrap is half the fun, so keep your creativity going. You can find tons of other great vehicle wrap examples and ideas online by searching through Google Images or Pinterest. Also, it’s a smart idea to look at your competitors and take inspiration from their branding and vehicle wraps.

Work Truck Decal Ideas

Truck decals are another fantastic way to customize your vehicle and make a statement on the road. Decals offer versatility, allowing you to add unique designs, logos, or messages to your truck’s surface without having to invest in a full vehicle wrap. 

Many of our clients keep it simple with their decals, using them to showcase their company logo and share contact information. But decals can also be used more creatively to display product or service images, quotes or slogans, awards, safety messages, and custom designs. Like vehicle wraps, truck decals offer endless possibilities for personalization and branding. 

Subtle Accent Vehicle Wrap Ideas

Vehicle wraps don’t need to be bold or flashy to make a statement. Subtle accent vehicle wraps offer a sophisticated and understated way to customize your vehicle and still attract attention. Focus on small details and accents that enhance the overall aesthetic. Options include side mirror wraps, roof wraps, grille wraps, window trim wraps, wheel accent wraps, door handle wraps, and side skirt wraps. A few personalized touches like this can significantly enhance the overall look and feel of your vehicle.

Benefits of Vehicle Wraps 

Vehicle wraps are popular among businesses and regular drivers for many reasons, including the following key benefits:

• Vinyl wraps protect your vehicle from minor scratches and dings and help keep the original paint in peak condition.
• They are also easy to remove while keeping the original car paint intact. This means no disruptions to your warranties or lease agreements and can help improve the resale value of your vehicle.
• They are weather-resistant and long-lasting, typically lasting around seven years or so, depending on the upkeep and usage.
• Vehicle wraps are highly customizable and present great opportunities for creativity.
• There are many options available depending on your needs and budget. If a full vehicle wrap is out of reach, there are partial wraps, decals, and smaller options available to help you brand your vehicle(s).
• If you’re looking to add a fancy finish or graphics to your vehicle, a vinyl wrap is a much more affordable and time-efficient option than car paint.
• They can help your vehicles and employees appear more polished and professional to build up your brand’s authority.
• They can help generate or increase brand awareness.
• Last but not least, as mentioned above, vehicle wraps are proven to be an effective and memorable form of advertising for your business. For example, a 2019 study found that 64% of U.S. residents surveyed noticed a wrapped vehicle advertising in the last month, and 44% noticed one in the last week.

With so many great benefits, what are you waiting for? Every drive you take without a vehicle wrap can be seen as a missed opportunity for engaging new potential customers for your business.

Car Wraps, Truck Wraps, and Van Wraps

At the right facility, a vehicle wrap can be applied to almost any vehicle of any size, whether that be a Mini Cooper, a semi-truck, or anything in between. It’s important to note that the size and shape of the vehicle will need to be taken into close consideration during the design process. The size and shape of the vehicle is also a factor that will affect the cost of the vehicle wrap; the bigger or more unusually shaped the vehicle, the more it’s likely to cost. If you want to learn more about the price of vehicle wraps, you can check out our other article, “How Much Does a Car Wrap Cost?” or contact our team for a more accurate and detailed estimate.

Vehicle Wrap Ideas For Your Business 

Well, that’s a WRAP! If you’re looking for any kind of vehicle wrap or need more ideas, we’re here to help! Our Vehicle Graphics Department specializes in custom-made vehicle graphics, including anything from simple door logos to full-coverage vehicle wraps. We use only high-performance media and our proven installation techniques will professionally brand your vehicle with graphics that will outlast our competitors. No matter the size of your vehicle or the complexity of the wrap design, our experienced team will make your vision a reality!