Free design proof on every custom order: no templates, no stock SKUs
Window decals are made to be applied to glass, printed on clear or white vinyl so the design reads clean against whatever is on the other side of the pane. Daylight, a dark interior, or a busy street scene. Unlike a cling, they use adhesive and are meant to stay put; unlike a decal for a painted surface, the material and print need to account for light passing through rather than reflecting off a solid backing. Common on storefront glass, office doors and vehicle windows.
Applying a decal to glass is different from applying one to a painted wall or a metal panel, because glass doesn't give a printed design anything to sit against. Light passes through it, and whatever is on the other side of the pane, daylight or a dark storeroom, shows through unless the decal accounts for it. That's why window decals are usually printed on either clear or white-backed vinyl rather than the standard opaque stock used for most other decal applications. Clear vinyl keeps the surrounding glass looking unobstructed and only shows the printed design itself, useful when the goal is a floating logo or graphic rather than a solid block of color. White-backed vinyl gives colors more depth and contrast, since the print sits against an opaque layer instead of daylight, at the cost of blocking more of the view through the glass behind it.
For a design that needs to cover a large area of glass without shutting out the view entirely, perforated window film is worth considering. It's printed with the image visible from the outside, but the material itself is punched with thousands of tiny holes, similar in concept to mesh banner material, that let someone standing inside still see out and daylight still come through. That's the technique behind large storefront window graphics and full vehicle window wraps that still let the driver or someone inside the shop see clearly.
Placement affects how a window decal is meant to be read. An interior-applied decal, viewed from outside looking in, protects the printed side from weather and handling since it sits behind the glass. The standard approach for most storefront and office window graphics. An exterior-applied decal sits on the outward-facing side of the glass and needs to be more weather-resistant as a result, though it can be a better fit for a vehicle window decal meant to be seen and touched from outside the car.
Window decals show up most often on storefront glass for branding and promotions, office and conference room doors for privacy or wayfinding graphics, and vehicle windows for business names, contact information or personal graphics. Ordering one means settling a few things upfront: which side of the glass it will go on, whether the background needs to be clear, white or perforated, and how much of the view through the glass needs to stay open once the decal is applied.
Almost every decal starts as adhesive-backed vinyl film, and the choice inside that is between calendered and cast. Calendered is rolled flat, costs less and stays happy on a flat panel for a season or two. Cast is poured, thinner and far more flexible, which is what lets it lie down over a curved fender or a recessed door edge without lifting at the corners later. Paper is not an option outdoors: it absorbs water, tears at the corners and fades in weeks.
Which one do I actually need? Flat surface, a year or two, calendered is fine. Curves, or several years in full sun, cast. Tell us the surface and we will pick it.
This is the fork that decides everything downstream. A printed decal has artwork laid onto the vinyl in CMYK or Pantone, which handles photographs, gradients and any number of colors. A cut decal has no ink at all: a plotter cuts the shape straight out of a sheet of solid colored vinyl and the waste is weeded away by hand. Cut work holds its color for as long as the film lasts, because there is no ink layer to fade, but one sheet is one color.
Can a cut decal have two colors? Yes, by cutting each color separately and applying them in register. Routine at two or three, fiddly beyond that.
The adhesive is specified against the surface and against how long the decal is meant to stay there, and getting it wrong is the most common cause of a decal that fails. Permanent adhesive grips hard and is the default for vehicles and exterior signage. Removable comes away cleanly for months afterwards, which is what a seasonal promotion or a dated permit needs. Static cling uses no adhesive at all and holds to glass by surface contact, so it leaves nothing behind.
Will a permanent decal damage my paint? Not on sound factory paint. It will lift a poor respray, and it needs heat and a plastic blade to come off cleanly after a few years.
A clear film over the printed face, and on anything going outdoors it is not decoration. UV is what fades a printed decal, and a laminate is the layer that takes that hit instead of the ink. It also absorbs the abrasion a decal gets from brushes in a car wash, from road grit and from being wiped down. Gloss lifts color saturation, matte kills reflections on glass, and a textured laminate adds scuff resistance where the decal is within reach.
Is it worth the extra? Outdoors, always. An unlaminated print in full sun visibly shifts inside a year; laminated, it holds for several.
Glass gives a design nothing to sit against. Daylight passes straight through, so whatever is behind the pane becomes part of how the decal reads. That is why these print on clear or white-backed vinyl rather than standard opaque stock, and why the choice between them matters more than on any other surface. Clear keeps the glass looking open, white gives the artwork its own opaque ground.
Inside or outside of the glass? Inside where you can, it is protected from weather and picking. Tell us which and we mirror the artwork for it.
Tell us the surface and how long it has to stay there. Those two answers pick the material, the adhesive and the laminate together, and getting them wrong is what makes a decal lift at the corners.
A clear film over the printed face that takes the sun instead of the ink. This is the difference between a decal that still looks right in three years and one that has visibly shifted by the end of its first summer. Gloss for saturation, matte where reflections off glass would be a problem.
A blade following the actual outline of the artwork rather than a rectangle around it, so nothing frames the design when it is applied. It needs a real vector path in the file, because a blade cannot follow an edge that exists only as pixels.
A carrier film laid over cut work so separated pieces, letters, a logo with detached parts, land on the surface correctly spaced. You position the whole assembly, squeegee it down, then peel the carrier off. Without it, cut lettering has to be applied one character at a time.
Picking the waste vinyl out from around and inside cut shapes by hand. It is the step that limits how fine cut work can go, because the practical constraint is not what a blade can cut but what a person can lift out without disturbing what stays. Small enclosed counters are where that bites.
Same family, genuinely different jobs. Your current selection is highlighted.
| Decal | From | Build | Order it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vinyl Decals | $160 | Printed adhesive vinyl | The general-purpose outdoor decal |
| Custom Decals | $160 | Your size, shape and quantity | Nothing standard fits the job |
| Die-cut Vinyl Decals | $160 | Solid color vinyl, plotter cut | Type and logos with no background |
| Custom Die-cut Decals | $160 | Cut to the artwork outline | No background shape around the logo |
| Outdoor Decals | $160 | UV laminate over outdoor vinyl | It faces months of sun and rain |
| Window Decals | $170 | Clear or white vinyl for glass | It is read through a window |
| Car Decals | $160 | Cut vinyl for panels and glass | It has to survive car washes and highway grit |
| Double Sided Decals | $160 | Printed on both faces | It is read from both sides of the glass |
| Parking Decals | $160 | Windshield or window permit | An attendant checks it at a glance |
| Round Decals | $160 | Circular cut | A seal or badge with no top or bottom |
| Oval Decals | $160 | Oval cut | A wordmark wider than it is tall |
| Square Decals | $160 | Equal width and height | QR codes and grid-based layouts |
| Rectangular Decals | $160 | Square cut, most efficient | Maximum layout area per sheet |
Inside wherever you can. The glass then shields the print from weather, from cleaning and from anyone picking at the edge from the street. It has to be reverse printed to read correctly from outside, so tell us which face it is going on and we handle the mirroring in prepress.
Clear keeps the window looking open and lets whatever is behind the glass show through the artwork, which suits a logo or lettering. White-backed gives the design its own opaque ground so colors read as intended, which matters for anything with photographs or pale tones in it.
Because process inks are translucent, so daylight coming through the glass passes through the color and dilutes it. The fix is a white underbase printed behind the elements that must read solid. Tell us which parts those are and we lay white behind exactly those.
A solid decal will, over its own area. If you need the graphic outside but the view retained inside, that is perforated film, which is roughly half open area and reads as a solid image from the street while staying see-through from within.
Pricing for window decals starts at $170 and moves with quantity, size, material and finish rather than sitting on a fixed list. Setup is shared across the run, so the per-unit price drops steeply as the quantity rises: the gap between a few hundred and a few thousand is usually the significant one. Send the size, quantity and what it has to do and you get a firm figure back, not a range.
There is a practical minimum rather than a hard one. Every run carries artwork checks, a proof and a press setup, so a very small quantity of window decals prices poorly per unit even though we will still make it. If you are ordering a small batch, ask for pricing at two or three quantities at once: the curve usually shows that a modest increase costs very little more in total.
The clock starts when you approve the proof, not when the order is placed, which is the part most people are surprised by. You get a proof first: a digital proof showing the artwork, the cut line and the finished size. On window work it shows the correct orientation for the side of the glass it is going on, which is the mistake that is expensive to catch late. Turnaround after approval depends on the finish: anything laminated, foiled or die-cut adds a stage that cannot be compressed without causing problems later. Tell us the date you actually need them and we will work backwards from it rather than quoting a generic lead time.
Yes. Built for light coming through it is the standard build, and the dimensions around it are yours to set. A size that sits efficiently on the press sheet often costs no more than a standard one, while an awkward proportion that wastes half the sheet does. Ask before you commit and we will tell you whether a small change to the dimensions saves a disproportionate amount.
In most cases they are the same product under a different name: the trade uses several terms for it depending on the region and the supplier. What actually defines this one is the build: clear or white vinyl for glass. Order it when it is read through a window. If you have seen it called glass door decals elsewhere, describe what it has to do rather than which name you found, and we will match the specification.
Yes. We provide free samples, and on window decals it is worth asking for one, because the difference between calendered vinyl and cast vinyl is obvious in the hand and invisible on a screen. Most orders run on calendered vinyl, but ask for whichever you are weighing up. You also get a free design proof before anything goes to press, so nothing is printed that you have not seen.
The usual choices are uv laminate, contour cutting, transfer tape. Finish is not decoration on this product so much as a decision about how long it survives and how it reads in the hand, so it is worth choosing against the job rather than the budget. Tell us where the finished piece ends up and we will say which finish is doing real work and which is only adding cost.
Yes, and that is what almost every order here is. Nothing in this catalogue is a stock item: window decals are manufactured to the specification you give us, with your artwork on them. Send your logo as vector artwork where you have it, since that scales to any size without softening. If all you have is a low-resolution file, tell us and we will say what it needs before it reaches the press.
Yes, and a repeat run is simpler than the first one. We keep your approved specification on file, so a reorder skips the setup decisions and goes straight to production. If nothing about the artwork or the specification has changed, there is nothing to re-approve. Tell us the previous order and we will match it rather than starting the specification again.
Yes. Regalo Print has been producing custom commercial print for businesses across North America since 2008, and every order ships tracked. The tracking number reaches you the day the job leaves, not the day it arrives. If you are working to a fixed date, say so when you order so the production schedule is built around the delivery date rather than the other way round.
