AG Wraps Blazes New Marketing Trails

Autumn Hall-Johnson and her brother John Hall have signmaking in their blood. Their grandfather operates a shop in Norfolk Virginia, and as teenagers they worked for their uncle at the shop John currently owns, Action Graphics & Signs in Chesapeake, Virginia. “It comes naturally,” said Autumn. “Our family enjoys designing and producing signs.”

Action Graphics is a traditional sign shop, manufacturing storefront signs, entry monuments, and other signage products. When John took over the shop three years ago, he created a new business unit called AG Wraps to handle commercial and custom vehicle graphics as well as wraps for snowboards, guitars, jewelry boxes and whatever else walks in the door.

Keeping both parts of the business running smoothly is their Roland DG VersaCAMM SP-540, a 54” wide format inkjet printer/cutter. “We run the Roland DG all day, every day, and then set it up to go overnight,” said John. They use Roland DG’s ECO-SOL MAX inks to ensure excellent color output.

“John started AG Wraps as a way to help our clients boost their bottom line with a cost-effective alternative to full color ads,” said Autumn. AG Wraps designs and installs wraps for commercial fleets as well as individual business vehicles, and has wrapped walls, floors and golf carts to publicize businesses in the area. They are often asked to provide wraps for a favorite local pastime: corn hole game boards. Companies and radio stations in the area often run contests with this popular game.

AG Wraps has designed and installed wraps on mailboxes, chairs, snowboards and guitars. John’s own vehicle is fully wrapped, including a strip of vinyl on the lip of the wheel rims and a personalized logo in the center of the hubcaps. “These days, people want to personalize everything they have,” said Autumn.

“We are kind of wrap-happy here,” said Autumn. “Fortunately, our printer keeps up with us.”

“Especially with vehicle wraps, it’s never ‘take as much time as you need,’” said Autumn with a smile. “Everybody needs their vehicles back yesterday.” To ensure they make their deadlines, AG Wraps uses Adobe software to design their graphics then RIPs the files with Roland DG’s VersaWorks software. They have a staff of four to handle orders, including graphic designer Jeremy Horne and Dan Streelman who handles production with Grant Enero, as well as John and Autumn’s younger sister, Taylor, who helps out when the shop gets busy.

In the past two years, John and Autumn have seen a dramatic increase in orders for boat wraps. “It has gotten to where all the tournament fishermen want full color wraps or painted graphics on their boat,” said Autumn. “We give them the edge they need to stand out from the competition.” AG Wraps designed and installed wraps for 10 boats last summer, and see this market expanding over the next few years.

AG Wraps recently completed a challenging series of wraps for a unique marketing promotion for Vivre Medical, Inc. Vivre asked John & Jeremy to create and install wraps on prize vehicles for a contest called “Saves Time, Saves Lives” which is open to all emergency medical services personnel. Vivre brought in 3 Toyota FJ Cruisers, each of which needed to be wrapped to coordinate with a medical rescue vehicle. The three sets of vehicles are a “Marine Rescue” FJ Cruiser with a Jet Ski, an “Urban Rescue” FJ Cruiser with a motorcycle and a “Country Rescue” FJ Cruiser with an all terrain vehicle (ATV). They also wanted to wrap a Jeep Rubicon to promote the contest. Vivre came to AG Wraps with their concept and asked that all seven wraps be designed, printed and installed within seven days. “The crew worked a lot of late hours that week!” said Autumn. “But the wraps looked great and were completed on the deadline.”

“We are kind of wrap-happy here,” said Autumn. “Fortunately, our printer keeps up with us.”