Designing vehicle wraps, how to make curves match up?

[Vico Drive]

I have designed and installed vehicle graphics before but never actual wraps.  Unlike boxy vans and trucks, sports cards and other vehicles sometimes have a lot of curves.  How do you design a wrap that factors in the curves to meet up, like maybe when it comes to the front fenders to smoothly meet up with the hood and the doors?  Are there plugins for something like this or maybe a separate program all together that some how works this stuff together into printable files?

[Tina_Irvine]

Hi @Vico Drive,

It's tricky, for sure. A lot of professional wrappers use templates that are available online.

[Bobby Henderson]

Vehicle wraps are an imperfect thing. The printed graphics are heated and stretched with a heat gun when applied to the vehicle. If the graphics have elements that are meant to line up over major transition points on the vehicle (such as spanning over the hood onto the sides of the vehicle) the elements probably won't line up once the graphics are applied. Passenger vehicles that aren't boxy like a truck or van can be especially problematic due to compound curves that often exist on the vehicle body.

Sometimes additional layers of graphics can be printed and cut so they can be applied to specific locations on the vehicle.

Generally I'll avoid placing any important design elements in areas like the seams between the hood and front sides of the vehicle body. The rear side panels and back of the vehicle is another important transition point.