Window Graphics

One way vision vinyl

One way vision vinyl is also known as contra vision. Contra vision is a brand name for a popular range of one way vision vinyls.

One way vision window vinyl has thousands of little holes across its surface, like a mesh. The design is printed on the face and the vinyl applied to the face of the window. When a passer by attempts to look through the printed side of the vinyl, their eye is drawn to the image making it near impossible to see in during normal lighting.

When someone inside the building looks out through the back of the vinyl, which is a solid dark colour, the eye is drawn to the image that can be seen outside.

Another advantage is that light isn’t completely stopped from coming through the window as approximately 40% of the vinyl is perforated.

We get asked for ‘frosted’ a lot but there are actually three vinyl options that we utilise when looking at creating privacy. Each type of vinyl has a different amount of sparkle in it.

• Frosted glass vinyl. This is a semi transparent film, which has a reasonable amount of ‘sparkle’ in it. Think of the type of vinyl you’d see on bathroom window.
• Etched glass vinyl. By far the most popular. Has a tiny bit of ‘sparkle’ in it, enough to stop the vinyl looking like a single flat grey colour. We use this a lot for office meeting rooms, restaurant shop windows, doctors room windows.
• Dusted glass vinyl. A flat, smooth, sandblasted effect. If you’ve ever found a piece of glass on the beach which has been worn smooth by the ocean, it’s very close to that look. We have used this when we want to print a detailed image onto the film. This gives the image a nice flat background behind it.
• For added visual impact, any of these vinyl types can have a full colour printed design on them and can also be cut to a custom shape.

There are two possible ways to get to the point where we have print ready artwork, and please note that we work with customers who have no understanding of artwork requirements every day. We’re here to help!

• Option 1 – You send us your artwork.
  • We require vector format artwork drawn to scale. EPS, AI or vectorised PDF are great.
• Option 2 – We design the artwork for you.
  • Our graphic designs can talk to you and gain an understanding of your requirements. We then produce artwork of your custom graphics. Depending on how complex this is, there may or may not be an additional cost.
  • We offer unique design services, not templated, not a copy of a previous job. Everything we produce is bespoke and a designed for you.
  • We work with a wide variety of customers and appreciate artwork is likely not something you deal with every day so we’re here to help!

All of our products are made from quality materials using brands of vinyl which have proven themselves in the field. 3M, Avery, Contra vision, Image Perfect to name just a few of the ranges we use in our quality products.

Yes, there are cheaper vinyl sticker materials out there, and yes they will shrink, fade, crack, fail in accordance with their cost.

We’ve been in the industry over 50 years and have seen our fair share of horror stories. We do our very best to offer advice and expertise so you have a great customer experience (Our google reviews).

Do window decals go inside or outside?

Window decals (window sticker & window graphic) will normally be applied to the inside surface of the window so they face outwards. This ensures people outside can not damage the print or quality of the material as the material is on the inside of the shop window, whereas they are outside.

Sometimes it’s not possible or practical to do this.

• A perforated window graphic must be applied to the outside face of the window to work.
• If the building has tinted glass windows, this may cause the issues with the visibility of any window stickers applied to the inside of the windows. White vinyl has the best chance of standing out, but most forms of vinyl stickers or window vinyls will need to be installed on the outside of the glass. (If in doubt, stick a sheet of A4 paper to the glass & look at it from the other side of the window).