The Vinyl Guys hails ‘fantastic’ SoStick solution

Based in Stafford, The Vinyl Guys has been providing branding and graphics services to the market since 2014, delivering everything from smaller, more intricate graphics through to impressive full vehicle wraps.

While known by many for its work in the vehicle branding market, the backbone of its activity is stickers and labels, with the company producing tens of thousands of items each week. The business has been working with the same materials for many years for this work but was recently persuaded to try out a new option.

Soyang Europe announced a new collection of SoStick self-adhesive vinyl solutions at the turn of the year, offering customers a selection of high quality monomeric and polymeric materials. Products range across permanent, removable, grey back, bubble free and high tack solutions.

The Vinyl Guys was offered the chance to try out SoStick MGWP, one of the monomeric solutions in the new range. The materials are suitable for use in applications including retail graphics, exhibition graphics, point of sale and short term indoor graphics.

To test out the solution, The Vinyl Guys ran it on both eco solvent and UV printers, producing a set of branded test and inspection stickers for a client in the electrical services market. During the initial run, which saw hundreds of stickers produced, both the company and its customer only had positive things to say about the SoStick solution.

‘We have put hundreds of metres of it through its paces and the results are genuinely fantastic,’ said owner Alex Liggett. ‘The end user feedback about the feel of the material and the look of the print was also positive; the finish is more of a satin than high gloss sheen and when printing on the UV, gave a very different finish and feel to other materials.

‘The finish coating of the material meant UV ink felt less raised and even on high speed settings, the vibrancy of colour and depth of blacks and dark blues especially was more like a medium quality setting and very consistent.’

As to what the customer had to say, the main feedback was that as the backing feels slightly thicker, this immediately felt like a higher quality material. The customer also noted how the material does not ‘droop’ like some other 80/100 micron material can once peeled.

‘This droop is something that was highlighted to us a few years ago when one brand we used moved their basic material from a 100 to an 80 micron material, which was actually a higher quality product, but the thinner feel immediately made some of our customers think that we’d gone to something cheaper,’ Alex said.

The stickers in question will be used by the customer to confirm that a piece of electrical equipment has been tested and signed off by one of its specialist team. Alex said that while it is true the sticker may not be seen by many people, the quality of the final printed product is still just as important.

‘Some will say it is just a sticker and it is hidden away in a cupboard on a distribution board, on a box, on packaging or on a boiler and that no one really looks at it. However, to us and to our customers it is a touch point of their business,’ Alex said.

‘Their brand is represented by this seemingly insignificant piece of sticky backed plastic and the design, the print, the feel, the look and the finish need to be right for them. We care about every material we use, from the monomeric sticker vinyl to the cast wrap vinyl and everything in between.’

Based on the success of this job, Alex said he is now looking forward to trying out more materials in the new SoStick range.

‘There is lots more in the range that we are yet to try, but if the rest are as good as the monomeric, I can see some more purchasing decisions being changed in the very near future,’ Alex said.