PROVIDENCE Have you ever wondered how they get those big ads onto downtown buses?

The ones that cover the whole bus – even the windows – with splashy graphics and photographs?

Graphic Innovations on Cedar Street in Providence has been covering buses, vans and cars in these graphics for over 10 years. That’s pretty much when the technology, which is entirely dependent on computer graphics and printing, was first developed, according to company owner Jim Larkin.

“I was a manager of print shops and saw the potential in the digital age,” he said, adding that much of his job is keeping up with technology.

The company, which specializes in large-format printing, has wrapped vehicles for companies who want to identify their vehicles — the wraps last 8 to 10 years and can outlast the vehicle, according to Larkin — as well as for public vehicles like buses that might be running an advertising campaign through moving billboards for a limited time.

Clients have included Dave’s Food Market, the Lottery, Roger Williams Park Zoo, Cox Communications, Channel 12 WPRI and Channel 6 WLNE and the National Guard as well as buses and regular cars.

It has also worked with a number of bicycling racing teams, including wrapping the chase cars and vans for Chicago-based bicycle component manufacturer SRAM and New York-based Navigators Insurance professional cycling team and TEAm Lipton professional women’s cycling team.

Vehicle wraps look like they are painted on but they are actually sets of printed vinyl sheets with adhesive on one side that are cut to shape and smoothed on by hand.

Late last week, the company wrapped a Mini for Inskip’s Motor-Tober (as in October) promotion on Saturday afternoon.

Sales manager Scott Lewis said the company established a Halloween theme with Inskip that at first envisaged wrapping the car to resemble a pumpkin. But as the design progressed, the design company and the dealership decided on cat’s eyes for the hood and lighted pumpkins on the sides and roof, all on a subtle background of black bats on gray.

“We have a digital auto library,” said Lewis, explaining that the company’s designers can pull up a template of any vehicle with side, top, front and back views at 1/20 scale.

The designers can then design images to fit exactly into the space, making sure that crucial lettering — a company’s name or telephone number, for example — does not fall across a door handle or gas tank.

“We can be sure to a pretty good degree how it is going to lie on the car,” he said.

He said most of the company’s vehicle wraps — it also produces large-format prints for banners, tradeshow booths, walls and windows — cover the whole vehicle. This prevents peeling and protects the car’s finish.

For the Mini, one sheet covered the hood, another the roof while two additional sheets ran along the sides. Three additional perforated panels covered the side and rear windows.

Once the design has been approved by the client, it is printed out on a large roller printer — Graphic Innovations has a couple of massive printers worth tens of thousands of dollars — on 4-foot-wide sheets that are the right width for an installer to hold up and apply like wallpaper.

The vinyl sheets have “control tack” on the underside that prevents it from sticking until squeezed down, which allows it to be repositioned while it is being applied. The underside is also scored with a barely visible criss-cross pattern of indentations, which allow air bubbles to be channeled out through pressure from a specialrubber spatula.

In wrapping the Mini, Justin Hughes started applying the wraps by roughly placing them in position with help from a couple of co-workers to get the overall design in place.

He then started at one corner and, through a combination of fine cuts with a sharp retractable-blade knife and smoothing out with a hand spatula, he quickly worked the design onto the surface of the car. Lewis said it was essential to get an entirely smooth surface, as “one bubble is going to grow.”

Hughes works surprisingly fast. Covering the hood, which involved working around curved surfaces and working round the headlights and grille, took him about 40 minutes, he said.

Indeed, Larkin recalled one job that called for the wrapping of a 40-foot bus. “The design was approved Friday and we had it printed, laminated, cut down and installed by Monday morning,” he said.

Because of its plastic quality, the material can be shaped onto the curves and tucked into the edges. A final touch involved a small blow torch that Hughes passed over the tucked-in edges to tighten them and remove the crinkles.

Hughes would later shape separate sheets of printed perforated vinyl over the rear windows. The vinyl has tiny holes, resulting in 50 percent coverage.

“It continues the image on the exterior but provides pretty good visibility from the inside,” said Larkin.

Both the regular vinyl and the “perf” are laminated with an ultraviolet protective layer. The layer also prevents water collecting in the small holes in the perforated sheets when it rains, he said.

Larkin, 47, started his company in 1996 after working in the printing business, starting as a driver and ending up as a manager. With a knowing smile, he described his background as “scratch and claw.”

And Lewis, 54, was just as disarmingly frank in describing his role in the company. “I’m a peddler,” he said simply, noting he joined the company five years ago from a rival printer. “I’ve always been in sales.”

Graphic Innovations is remarkably lean considering the scale of the projects it handles. With its printing, production and installation facilities adjoining law offices, it has about 10 employees, with three in sales, three in printing and production and a couple of installers.

Larkin said much of the pressure comes from deadlines. “If a client needs a project for Monday and it’s not there on Monday, they don’t need it at all,” he said. “If you are too busy to meet a deadline, too bad.”

What does it cost to cover a car? Larkin said he costs jobs by the square footage and the nature of the surface of the vehicle. He estimated the job covering the Mini at about $3,500. A VW Beetle, for example, “would cost more because of all the curves,” he said.

On the other hand, he said it is relatively simple to apply sheets to a flat panel truck, although air bubbles have to be removed from around the rivets.

“And it’s best to overlap the panels so they go with the wind,” said Lewis, noting it was a small detail but something one had to think about.

For more information, check out: www.graphin.com.

pelsworth@projo.com