Products: Bourn Adventure Gear Stickers and Decals

3/9/2017

Although patches are our top seller now, Bourn Adventure Gear started with stickers and decals in late 2012. If you are not familiar with our beginning or why we started designing stickers, please click here: About Us, Bourn Adventure Gear

That article goes into detail about our history with stickers and what influenced a lot of our designs. What it does not cover is how our stickers and decals are designed, made, and installed, which we will talk about here.

You may have noticed, I separate the words sticker and decal. They are both made from vinyl, but the design work, production process, and finished product are different between the two, which is why we refer to them differently.

Design

For our stickers as well as other products, we use Adobe Illustrator (AI) which is a vector based software. If you are not familiar with that program, please read our design article here: Our Design Evolution. For our decals, we use Graphtec Studio, which is the native software for our Graphtec cutting plotter.

Depending on the design and detail, the graphic might look better as a multicolor sticker or as a single color decal. Sometimes we use the same design for both a sticker and a decal like we did with the My Toyota Rocks! design.

Sticker

Decal

Stickers

Most of the design work is done in-house, but we outsource sticker production to an online company which we have used for many years. Our multicolor stickers are printed on premium vinyl which allows for rich color and extensive detail. Each sticker has a permanent adhesive backing and is sealed with a protective laminate.

Due to the production process, each sticker is extremely durable and can withstand exposure to sunlight, wind, and rain. We personally have ran our stickers on our Bourn Adventure vehicles for several years without fading, scratching, or peeling.

Decals

All of our design work and production is done in-house on our Graphtec cutting plotter. Our single color decals are made using high-quality vinyl which is designed for both indoor and outdoor use. The vinyl is extremely durable and has a life expectancy of 3-5 years depending on the environment and care. The vinyl itself has an adhesive backing which allows for placement on most surfaces. Once applied, it can withstand exposure to rain, wind, dirt, and sun.

For additional information regarding installation and maintenance of our decals, please read our article here: Vinyl Decal Information

We personally have ran our decals on our Bourn Adventure vehicles for several years without fading, scratching, or peeling.

Installation

Like we mentioned, our stickers and decals can be placed on just about any surface, inside or outside. For the most part, installation is as simple as:

Identifying a location
Cleaning the surface
Preparing the sticker or decal by removing the backing
Placing the sticker or decal onto the surface
Take pictures and share with the world!

Additional considerations for cleaning the surface. Typically, alcohol works best (not beer, whiskey, or wine...that's for you). This helps remove any dust, dirt, grease, or other debris before placing the sticker or decal on.

Additional considerations for installation. Typically, starting on one side of the sticker or decal and working your way to the other helps prevent air bubbles from becoming trapped underneath. If any are present after installation, using a flat object like a credit card and running it over the surface of the sticker or decal can help push the air bubbles to the edge. However, this technique could damage the product.

Maintenance

Normally the stickers and decals themselves require little to no maintenance. This refers more to the area where they are applied. When cleaning your vehicle or other surfaces on which you have placed a sticker or decal, try to avoid vigorously scrubbing on top of it. Direct contact like this could lead to portions of the sticker or decal potentially pealing up or being removed.

This is more of a concern with decals rather than stickers as the decals tend to have smaller, exposed details.

The Journey

We love stickers and decals because of the places they go and stories they tell. They can be put on computers, tool boxes, vehicles, walls, windows, lunch boxes, small children, and just about anything else. With over 150 sticker and decal options available in our store, there isn't a situation or place one of our "stickables" can't relate to.

We want our products to outlast your adventure, which is why we continually do research and development on all Bourn Adventure Gear. We even rolled our Toyota FJ Cruiser for sticker and decal product testing and guess what? They stuck!

Thank you for reading this article. We hope you found it entertaining. If so, please share it with others and don't forget to leave a comment down below!

We don't just design adventure based products, we live them!
-Bourn Adventure Gear

Author: Baker