|
 |
A
Leeward Productions Extra
Individually Personalized
and Serial-Numbered Custom Aluminum License Plates Imprinting
Variable
data and serial numbering for custom
auto and golf cart license plates is now here
Thanks to the variable-data capability of
the production line used to produce our full-color
aluminum license plates, each tag can be lettered with its own unique
alphanumeric serial number, name, title, or motto, etc. Variable data and
serial numbers can be sequential/ consecutive or arbitrary/
nonsequential according to your preference. Available only from Leeward
Productions, due to our exclusive relationship with the U.S.’s predominant
supplier of state-license-plate-grade printing solutions and serial numbering
systems to prison industries.
Examples for license plate use include:
- Serial numbering for retirement-community golf carts,
or government and corporate vehicle fleets.
- Variable-data imprinting of company job positions, department titles,
or store locations for use on car/ truck fleets,
such as to help identify employees on job sites.
- Individually personalized employee or student names for special awards.
Also, license plates can be used, reused, and reassigned to different
vehicles for more flexibility than permanently applied vinyl decals.
Also useful where numerous small signs may be needed, such as:
- To mark uniquely designated areas within industrial
facilities indoors or out. (The heavy-duty state-license-plate-grade
construction is made to take a beating from the elements.)
- For fenced areas where a unique, permanent
notice or sign is needed for each.
Requirements:
- Overall plate layout and graphics must be identical
for all plates.
- Same reserved area must be used for the variable-data
imprint on all plates. Up to two variable-data fields per plate can
be designated.
- Any font can be used that we have available in our
library, one per variable-data field. (Our library is large — ask
what we have available, and in most cases we will probably have what you
are looking for, or something very similar. If not, we can purchase the
font and add it to the cost of your order.)
Kerning and tracking are not supported, however, so we recommend
using only a font that looks decent without them. Unlike with other artwork
on the plate, where all fonts must be converted to outlines before printing, “live” fonts
are used for the variable-data fields. Fonts with kerning tables will work
fine, but kerning pairs (whether built-in or manually applied) as well
as any tracking applied to variable-data text in your layout file will
be ignored. For serial numbers we recommend a monospaced
font — where all characters take up the same horizontal
space — particularly if the plate layout relies on consistent spacing
between the numbers and any adjacent graphics for a balanced appearance.
If you are laying out the plate on your end, use a
dummy entry for the variable-data text area — our variable-data
software will perform all the substitutions. (The longest entry among the
variable data items to be printed is recommended for use as the dummy text
to make sure the layout can accommodate it.)
- Text size, alignment, and fitting. Text can be any
size, and align either flush left, centered, or flush right. All
text within a variable-data field must be the same point size and alignment.
We will test that the longest entry fits the available space, and can size
the text accordingly. If you are laying out the plate graphics yourself,
we strongly recommend that you test beforehand on your end using one or
more dummy entries with the intended font. Any overset text for the actual
imprints will be automatically truncated during output. If the longest
entry requires a text size that’s unsatisfactorily small, the tradeoff
is to abbreviate the longest entry(ies) so the field’s text size
can be larger and all entries still fit.
- Solid/flat colors only for the variable-data imprint. Rest
of plate can use blends, gradients, or other photographic effects.
The flat color can be defined as either a spot/PMS or process color in
the layout file, although PMS colors are converted to process/
CMYK color on output.
- Submission format for variable data. For plates using
a single variable-data field on the plate, the process is easy. Simply
submit the entries in a common electronic text format such as email or
Microsoft Word using a single carriage return between each entry, and we
will do the rest.
Variable-data output can span multiple lines on the plate, but entries
should still be submitted separated by a single carriage return, using
unique separator characters between each intended line of output text for
parsing during the import process. (Space-Semicolon-Space separator sequence
recommended in such cases.) Alternatively, multiple-line field entries
can be entered using a simple Excel spreadsheet template we can furnish.
Variable-data text submitted to us via email or Word will be imported into
the Excel template anyway on our end, so you can handle that yourself if
you prefer.
For plates with two variable-data fields that must be coordinated with
each other, filling out our Excel spreadsheet template is mandatory. (Each
variable-data field utilizes its own column in the spreadsheet.)
- Proofreading of submitted text is customer’s
responsibility. No liability assumed for incorrect copy printed as submitted.
|