The Vinyl Guys recently became one of the first UK customers to try out one of the monomeric materials in Soyang Europe’s new SoStick range.
Vehicle branding and customisation specialist The Vinyl Guys has discussed its experience of working with a new SoStick solution from Soyang Europe, saying the material has resulted in “genuinely fantastic” prints.
Based in Stafford, The Vinyl Guys are known by many for their work in the vehicle branding market. However, the backbone of The Vinyl Guys’ 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 the new collection of SoStick self-adhesive monomeric and polymeric vinyl solutions at the turn of the year. Products range across permanent, removable, grey back, bubble-free and high-tack solutions.
The Vinyl Guys were offered the chance to try out SoStick MGWP, one of the monomeric solutions in the new range. SoStick monomeric materials are suitable for use in applications including retail graphics, exhibition graphics, POS and short-term indoor graphics.
To test 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. The initial run saw hundreds of stickers produced.
“We’ve put hundreds of metres of it through its paces and the results are genuinely fantastic,” said Alex Liggett, Owner of The Vinyl Guys. “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.”
The customer’s main feedback was that this immediately felt like a higher quality material as the backing feels slightly thicker. The customer also noted how the material does not “droop”.
“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 80micron 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’s just a sticker and it’s 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’s 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.
