Melbourne wide format printer Graphic Effects won the 2014 ASGA Wrap Masters National Challenge by less than two minutes, but fell to the New Zealand winners in a Trans-Tasman showdown.
At a competition held during the Visual Impact show the vehicle wrapping and business signage specialists defeated other state winners from around Australia with an adjusted time of three hours, 29 minutes and 27 seconds – just one minute and 22 seconds ahead of Brisbane wide format printer SS Signs.
The teams raced to wrap an entire car with printed film, but also had to do a good quality job with time penalties added for mistakes and often being the difference between winning and losing in tight contests.
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After winning the Aussie final, they faced Kiwi team GAS Graphics the next day in an exhibition match, but were soundly beaten by their experienced opponents.
Though Graphic Effects was able to shave 19 minutes off the previous day’s finishing time, its adjusted time of four hours, 21 minutes and 10 seconds was no match for the GAS time of three hours, 31 minutes and 29 seconds (time penalties were doubled to two minutes per mistake in this match).
Graphic Effects director Iain Gartley says the team improved its finishing time by 50 minutes from the state preliminary thanks to better planning, time and effort and learning from their mistakes.
“There wasn’t a day in the weeks after the Victorian event where someone didn’t have a new idea on how to improve,” he says.
“We wrote notes and in the week before this event we mapped it all out – who does what in what order according to their strengths, like in any team sport.
“We changed enough things to improve a lot more than the 20-30 minutes we hoped for, which was very surprising.
“I would have loved to be able to watch the Kiwis at work and see how they do it.”
Gartley says Graphic Effects will definitely enter a team next year and that the experience of the competition will help the company do a better job in its business.
“It’s got to help on normal jobs, just having that confidence in knowing what you can do,” he says.
Behind the leaders were Sydney wide format printer Bear Designs three hours, 35 minutes and 49 seconds and Darwin sign printer SignCity with three hours, 41 minutes and 30 seconds.
Perth entrant Signarama Joondalup was unable to compete after one of its team was struck down by a nasty virus and collapsed twice on the way to the event.
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Competition judge and managing director of Sydney signage company Metalplaque was in charge of assessing the quality of the work and determining the final times.
"We go round the car, judging each panel separately and judge their accuracy, craftsmanship, cutting, making sure there are no bubbles, misalignment or crease marks,” he says.
He says there has been a lot of interest in the competition and the next final will be in New Zealand in 2016.
"We have had quite a few people join the audience for the heats around Australia, including people out of the industry who are just interested in seeing what is happening and how a car gets wrapped,” he says.
"People cannot expect that sign companies will wrap a car in that sort of time, because there is more time put into the job to make sure every part is correct. The idea here is to show a bit of skill and speed to get people interested.
"Even at this show people are amazed to see how quickly a car can be wrapped, so accurately, and just how much it changes a car.”
Graphic Effects will take home a Roland DG SolJet PRO4 XR-640 loaded with premium 3M film as their prize.
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