Look no further than your feet for one of today’s trendiest branding and promotional tools: custom floor graphics. You may know them from basketball courts, but they can be used in several other applications and industries. Printed decals and stickers are where the rubber meets the road — or in this case, where the vinyl meets the floor — to spur interaction and drive unique engagement between businesses and customers across industries.
SpeedPro prints these custom visual pieces for a variety of indoor and outdoor applications. Vinyl floor graphics are an excellent addition for companies looking to brand and stand apart from the rest, commanding attention from the ground up. If you’re interested in learning more about floor graphics, find out more about what they are, their benefits, how you can use them and where you can install them.
Table of Contents
What Are Custom Vinyl Floor Graphics?
Business Benefits of Indoor and Outdoor Floor Graphics
What Designs Can I Include on Floor Graphics?
Where Can I Place Custom Vinyl Floor Decals and Graphics?
What Are Custom Vinyl Floor Graphics?
Printed floor graphics are a bold and creative utilization of your organization’s floor space. They’re sticker-like decals that you “peel and place” in strategic locations to display select branded themes — inside or outside — as short-term or semi-permanent signage. Most vinyl graphics consist of three parts:
- The base vinyl layer: The base vinyl layer is the flexible substrate that images are printed onto.
- The anti-skid laminate coating: Sometimes referred to as a matte mask, the anti-skid laminate coating protects the design from dangers, such as slips, scratches, discoloration and skid marks.
- The strong adhesive layer: The adhesive layer bonds the decal to the floor during installation.
Custom floor graphics offer a professional stamp onto your space — literally. Businesses with floor graphics have gone the extra step to customize their surroundings. These graphics can easily remain on-brand and on-mission. Many companies use floor graphics’ text and images to display logos, showcase a mission statement, reinforce organization values or highlight other marketing and PR identities.
In short, printing custom floor graphics means printing a piece of your business for that spatial “wow” factor — and reaping strategic marketing benefits along the way.
Business Benefits of Indoor and Outdoor Floor Graphics
Custom vinyl floor graphics break the branding mold. With consumers more ad-saturated than ever, floor graphics are a way to capture and capitalize on the interest of an audience. Even passive eyes, like passing foot traffic or people on their smartphones, can’t miss unique floor decals. While capturing attention is one of the major benefits of outdoor and indoor floor graphics, they can provide your business with several more advantages.
Learn more about the five main business benefits of indoor and outdoor floor graphics below:
1. Brand Your Space
Floors are too often an afterthought when it comes to branding a space — if they’re thought of at all. Your floor’s open expanse is an untapped resource ready to highlight marketing messages and dictate consumer behaviors in an original way designed to connect with people instead of just trying to sell to them. This strategy comes wrapped in what’s known as the experiential design movement, a design trend merging psychology, technology and visual arts to create immersive, warm and engaging spaces.
When done right, experiential design can create an environment where your brand comes to life. With experiential design guiding your graphics, you can showcase your brand on your walls, in your hallways, on your floors and even in your restrooms. Whoever steps foot in your organization will know where they are and feel a heightened sense of connection to your space. This connection drives successful branding.
Floor decals align perfectly with experiential branding. Rather than inundating clients and visitors with familiar advertisements and marketing messages, vinyl floor graphics build a fresh ambiance. They amplify a room’s professional look and feel while also showing off your branded personality.
Custom vinyl floor decals are great for:
- Lobbies and entryways
- Conference rooms
- Trade show booths
- Dining halls and cafeterias
- Reception areas
- Entertainment venues
- Campuses
- Gyms and fitness centers
- Retail stores
- Theaters
2. Direct Traffic
Steer traffic and conduct organic crowd control by printing custom signage directly onto your floors. Since floor graphics can serve as a form of wayfinding signage, you can use them throughout your store, facility, gymnasium or other business location to provide customers and employees with directions.
In retail stores, traffic control keeps lanes clear and mitigates chokepoints at checkout and in popular departments. In supermarkets, floor decals can serve as aisle labels, complementing or even replacing hanging signs and assisting in crowd movement. In malls and outlets, outdoor floor graphics identify your storefront and help it stand out from the rest, drawing both eyes and feet to your store.
Stores of any kind with more than one door can use printed floor decals to indicate proper entryways. Guests won’t be left guessing which entryway is right or why a door is locked. Instead, they’ll know exactly where they should go and feel more welcome at your store as a result.
Labeled areas are smart for crowd control, and in some industries, labeling is even a matter of compliance. For example, warehouses often use equipment lanes to assist heavy equipment, like pallet jacks, compact loaders and golf carts, as they navigate safely down narrow stocked aisles. Think of areas that indicate protective gear storage and mandatory sanitation stations. Custom floor decals achieve all this without sacrificing a quality appearance. Blending form with function, they make a keen statement about the professionalism behind your business.
3. Promote In-Store Products and Sales
Custom floor graphics can be used as temporary or permanent signage, which makes them ideal sales vehicles, promoting goods and services for a select period or proclaiming continual deals.
In-store specials remain as popular as ever. Customers across demographics repeatedly cite how important thrift is in their shopping decisions. Price discounts and free samples are the most common in-store promotions influencing purchases, and custom floor graphics provide an ideal template to guide customers to sampling areas and promote items on sale.
Boosting your in-store specials is an art form as well as an imperative. With 76% of people’s purchasing decisions made in-store, businesses must leverage marketing materials that will connect, convert and close sales in real-time to remain competitive. This process requires effective messaging material design — exactly what you get with custom vinyl floor decals.
Businesses use floor graphics to promote many of the following in-store sales:
- Point-of-sale advertisements at the register or at self-checkout
- Seasonal products and specials
- Flash sales
- Bundles and package deals
- Cross promotions
- New and limited-time merchandise
- Rewards programs
- Membership programs
4. Add an Artistic Touch
Floors are a blank business canvas. Give your business an “it” factor using a medium that’s already right there, in place and available for adornment.
Custom floor decals amplify the aesthetics of your space. They can be used as decorative elements, ornaments, colorful visuals or room accents. SpeedPro has even printed large-format floor decals that look and act like custom flooring itself, adding a creative, bold and eye-catching twist to the normal wooded or tiled commercial space.
These aesthetic touches can be your company’s statement piece. Organizations using indoor floor graphics appear both professional and fun. They aren’t satisfied with conventional appearances or long-held expectations of what a store, restaurant, office, hotel or anything in between should like. Plus, floor decals sit at a price that makes them far more cost-effective than floor renovations — another benefit for businesses looking to revamp their space.
Vinyl floor graphics can complement and enhance branded aesthetics using any of the following:
- Logos
- Slogans and taglines
- Mascots or branded company figures
- Geometric patterns and shapes
- Material textures, such as marbling, masonry or brick
- Product pictures
5. Surprise, Inform and Delight Viewers
Floor decals and graphics make the floor speak for you. They support and reinforce your brand, convey relevant information, embellish your space and captivate attention. They can also relay other details about your organization — details that otherwise wouldn’t meet the eye.
Consider the bits and pieces that make your organization genuinely unique, such as its founding date, sales figures, first sale and publications it’s been featured in. These details build an unfolding and memorable story at your customers’ feet. Surprise and delight customers by including any of the following in your unique custom floor graphics:
- Industry awards or distinctions you’ve won
- Facts about your organization
- Your mission statement or company values
- Quirky company or industry facts
Floor signage and graphics can communicate all this information seamlessly and organically. As a result, everyone from passive visitors to returning customers will connect more with your brand, feeling a part of its enduring success.
Contact a Studio Near You for a Consultation for Floor Decals
The Floor Is the Limit
Vinyl floor graphics provide a creative marketing tool with serious conversion power. For example, a study from Point of Purchase Advertising International’s Mass Merchant Study identified point-of-sale displays as increasing sales by 1.4 times. The most common variable to that sales-boosting success? Rotating displays to keep pictures and information fresh — precisely what floor point-of-sale promotions do.
Given their unique capacity for attention-nabbing and novelty, custom floor decals, stickers and graphics are a standout choice for point of sale and promotional advertisements. They can be big and bold or smart and subtle. Best of all, custom vinyl graphics grab the attention of the hardest to reach customers. The floor really is the limit to capture leads and earn business from the following traditionally challenging consumer categories:
- People on their smartphones: The average American will use their smartphones 52 times in a single day. That translates to 3.3 hours staring down at a handheld screen — down being the operative word. Positioning logos, marketing messages and company information directly in that line of sight is an unbeatable marketing strategy.
- People in lines: Bright, bold and visually arresting, floor graphics are an MVP in the lineup of influential point-of-sale conversion tactics detailed above. And when are eyes primed for bright and bold stimulus? When they’re waiting in line. Whether in-house at your own register or in public queues — such as those at bus stops and subway stations — indoor and outdoor floor graphics make for interesting visual material for those waiting in line.
- People in a hurry: Most sales signs and advertisements hang at or above eye level. This placement makes sense for intentional shoppers and in-store browsers, but what about those not in an active shopping mindset? Research indicates that those walking in a rush focus more on their footing, an unconscious reaction our brain initiates to ensure stability given increased walking speeds. You can take advantage of this natural occurrence through strategically set floor graphics designed to capture the attention of people not currently focused on shopping.
What Designs Can I Include on Floor Graphics?
While we touched on it previously, you might be wondering what designs you can include on floor stickers and graphics. Due to floor decals’ versatility, you can add various designs and graphics to them, such as patterns, slogans, directional graphics, printed textures and mascots. These custom designs can improve a floor sticker’s appearance and better brand your business or organization. If you want to make your floor graphics as attractive as possible, check out some of the top ideas for floor graphics:
- Patterns and shapes: While floor decals are already very eye-catching, you can make them even more appealing by adding attractive shapes and patterns to them. For example, geometric patterns on floor stickers can give them a futuristic and stylish appearance. Besides adding attractive patterns to a floor graphic, you can also cut the floor graphic into a particular shape to stand out from the more standard squares and circles.
- Taglines, logos and slogans: You may also want to add slogans, logos and taglines to your floor graphics to make them reinforce your brand. These floor graphics can be outfitted with particular text and images sharing your company’s values and making buyers more likely to remember your company in the future.
- Printed textures: Printed textures are perfect for companies wanting their floor graphics to have a classic appearance. You can add textures like wood grain, marble, masonry and brick to increase your facility’s ambiance and branding efforts. Additionally, you can use particular textures to accentuate a product, such as a sporting goods store placing a football field texture on floor graphics near football gear.
- Product images: You can also include product images on your floor graphics to pique customers’ interest and direct them to the item in the store. A decal with a new or attractive product placed outside your store or tradeshow booth can also get people interested in taking a moment to stop by and learn more about the product.
- Branding figures and mascots: Many businesses enjoy placing mascots or branding figures on their floor decals to catch people’s eyes and showcase your brand. Decals with mascots are especially popular at sports venues to increase team spirit and at children’s stores to give children a recognizable, friendly face they’ll see as soon as they enter a store.
- Directions: You can outfit your floor signage with text and graphics designed to provide people with directions around your business. These graphics can be as simple as an arrow pointing people to the front desk or more complex designs to section off special areas and zones. You can also add instructions to your floor graphics to give viewers a clear idea about how they can get to where they want to go.
Schedule a Design Consultation for Your Floor Graphics with SpeedPro
Where Can I Place Custom Vinyl Floor Decals and Graphics?
There are a few “ground rules” for placing and sustaining vinyl floor graphics. For example, it’s essential to always prepare the floor before installation, which means cleaning the entire application site to remove dust, dirt and oils. After cleaning a surface, you’ll need to dry it thoroughly to ensure the decal’s adhesive backing can adequately stick. Depending on your floor type, there may be additional steps and preparations to take into account.
Find out more about the main rules for placing custom vinyl floor decals indoors and outdoors below:
1. Outdoor
Outdoor decals must be tough and durable. They require patient application for text and images to remain intact and protected from the increased elements their outdoor setting exposes them to. Concrete and asphalt are the two primary surfaces for exterior floor decals. Before application, take care to avoid large cracks, bumps and uneven terrain present in any concrete or asphalt base. Attempting to place decals over cracks will prevent the adhesive from binding to the surface properly and result in peeling graphics.
Check out some of the other primary tips for outdoor installation below:
- Select slip and skid-resistant laminates: This step is especially important if you’re laying your decal in an area bound to experience foot traffic, such as doorways, sidewalks, gateways or parking lots.
- Opt for extra matte protection and the strongest adhesive: An extra matte laminate layer bolsters your outdoor floor graphic’s strength, screening against UV rays, ice and rain. Additionally, a strong adhesive keeps the graphic in place.
- Look out for moisture and condensation weak spots: Condensation builds up in exterior nooks, cracks and holes. Fill and smooth any of these that you find. Before applying your floor signage, wait at least 24 hours for filler material to dry and solidify.
- Bear in mind temperature changes: Contemporary sidewalks and driveways made from cement or asphalt come poured with small but important temperature-fluctuating relief channels, which help keep their surfaces from cracking or shifting when temperatures change. Be careful not to obstruct or seal off these features when placing your custom decals outside.
2. Indoor
Keeping the installation area clean and dry beforehand is as essential indoors as it is outdoors. With indoor applications, you’ll also want to note any treatments the application site receives, such as waxing and vacuuming. Hold off on surface treatments for 24 to 48 hours before laying your indoor images. Usually, vinyl, wood, indoor concrete and tile work best as bases for vinyl floor graphics. The smoother these surfaces are, the better.
Before you apply floor graphics indoors, learn more about some primary indoor installation tips:
- Avoid grout lines and tile edges: When you install floor graphics on vinyl or tile, place them no less than half an inch from tile edges and grout lines. Like cracks in cement or asphalt, these spaces can trap air bubbles and cause premature peeling.
- Stay away from floor end joints: When applying a decal to wood or wood laminate, keep an eye out for floor end joints. Even shallow ones can make custom floor decals pucker and appear bumpy and irregular.
- Use a squeegee when applying decals:By using a squeegee during decal application, your decals will be less likely to have air pockets than they would if you pressed your decals manually onto a surface with your hands. Squeegees prevent air pockets by giving you more even pressure during application.
- Give the newly applied decal eight to 24 hours to sit: Depending on your floor graphic’s size and scale, you’ll want to let it sit for eight to 24 hours before you let people walk on it or interact with it in any way. Afterward, you can treat your floor graphic like any other part of the flooring.
SpeedPro: Your Partner in Printing Custom Floor Graphics
Your business, brand and vision matter — make your messages count just as much. SpeedPro’s national network of imaging studios is adept at handling indoor and outdoor custom vinyl graphics. When you select us as your printing partner, you’ll gain access to insights and expertise across the entire floor graphics order process. We’ll also give your business a personal representative devoted to fielding questions and handling any decal-related concerns.
We can guide you through your selection of custom floor substrates, laminates and adhesives, as well as application preparation and installation. Find your local SpeedPro studio to get started — we’re just a click away.
