— Vehicle & Truck Lettering
Custom cut vinyl lettering, logos, USDOT numbers and commercial vehicle identification—professionally produced and installed by Gogi Signs.
Professional installation
Aligned and applied by our team
Often same day
Once artwork is settled
DOT & MC numbers
Sized and placed correctly
Linden, NJ
Or on site at your yard
— What it is
Vehicle lettering is individual letters and shapes cut from a single sheet of colored vinyl, weeded by hand, carried on transfer tape and laid onto your paint. There is no background and no printed panel — the body color of the vehicle shows through between the letters, so a lettered van still looks like a van rather than a billboard.
Lettering uses the same professional vinyl material family as vehicle wraps but requires less coverage. It is an efficient way to add business identification, services, contact details and required numbers while keeping the factory paint visible. Many approved lettering jobs can be installed within one working day.
Trucks, vans, trailers, pickups, box bodies and tractor cabs all take lettering the same way. What varies is how much goes on, where it sits, and which of it you are legally required to carry.
— Professional installation
Correct sizing and placement are as important as the vinyl itself. We prepare the layout for the actual doors and panels, then install it with consistent alignment, spacing and adhesion.
Planned for the actual vehicle
We size and position the lettering against the vehicle's real doors, panels, handles, hinges and body contours before anything is cut.
Produced and installed by one team
Gogi Signs completes cutting, weeding, masking, surface preparation and installation through our Linden facility.
— What goes on
Effective commercial lettering gives priority to the information a potential customer or inspector needs to identify quickly.
A practical information hierarchy. Most layouts begin with the following elements, adjusted for the business and vehicle.
What to leave off. Full service lists, addresses, mission statements, social icons and a website that only exists to show the phone number again. Every one of them shrinks everything else, and none of them is read at distance.
Where it goes matters as much as what it says. Doors are the obvious place and rarely the most valuable one.
Contrast decides legibility, not size. Dark vinyl on a white van reads from three lanes away. The same letters in mid-grey on silver disappear at fifty feet regardless of how big they are.
— Our work
Cab doors, rear panels and compliance markings from around New Jersey.
Name, trade and license on factory paint
The panel stationary traffic actually reads
Sized and placed to the regulations
Invisible by day, lit up by headlights
One layout applied consistently to a mixed fleet
Positioned, squeegeed and the tape lifted by us
— Compliance
This is the reason a lot of commercial vehicles get lettered at all, and it has rules that a text box on a print shop’s website will not enforce for you.
Legible from fifty feet, in daylight, while stationary
That is the standard federal motor carrier regulations set for a USDOT number on a commercial vehicle, and it is a lower bar than most people assume — but it is a bar. The marking has to contrast against its background, stay legible, and appear on both sides of the vehicle.
What causes trouble is not the size. It is placement on a panel that curves or carries a seam, contrast against a mid-tone body color, and numbers stuck over a wrap afterwards where they were never planned for.
We lay these in first as fixed content and cut them in a color that will still contrast in five years. If your operating authority changes, they come off and get replaced without disturbing anything around them.
Markings we cut and fit
Requirements depend on what you haul, where you operate and under whose authority. We cut what your operation needs — confirming which markings apply to you is between you and your compliance advisor.
— Materials
Same cutting process, different material. What you pick changes cost, lifespan and how the vehicle reads at night.
Solid color, matte or gloss, in a wide color range. What the great majority of commercial lettering is, and the benchmark everything else is priced against.
The strongest contrast available on a dark or metallic body, and the reason most black vans end up lettered in white rather than a brand color.
Reads as a flat color by day and lights up under headlights at night. Worth it on anything parked roadside after dark or working near traffic.
Brushed, gold and chrome-effect finishes for a premium look. More expensive per square foot and less forgiving on a textured or aged panel.
Removable, and genuinely useful on a personal vehicle used for work. Not a substitute for applied lettering at highway speed — see the FAQ below.
Frosted vinyl for glass panels and rear windows. Common on service vehicles that want a discreet finish rather than a loud one.
— Compliance
This is the reason a lot of commercial vehicles get lettered at all, and it has rules that a text box on a print shop’s website will not enforce for you.
Lettering is the right call when
It costs a fraction of a wrap, fits in a fraction of the time, and on the right vehicle it does not look like the cheap option.
A wrap earns its money when
Partial wraps sit between the two: printed panels low with cut lettering above.
— Cost
A cost-effective commercial branding option
$350–$1,500+
This planning range covers many common commercial lettering projects. Final pricing depends on panel count, artwork preparation, vinyl type, removal needs, installation location and the number of vehicles.
— Across a yard
Not every vehicle in a mixed fleet requires the same level of coverage. A controlled lettering system can carry the same logo, typography, colors and identification standards across vans, pickups, trucks and trailers while reserving full wraps for selected vehicles.
— Where we work
Our shop is at 5 W Baltimore Ave in Linden, Union County. Lettering is the job that most rewards being close: it is usually a single short visit, and there is no version of it that works well by post.
Bring the vehicle in and most jobs are done and away the same day once the layout is agreed. Where a vehicle cannot be spared, or where a yard has several to do at once, the crew comes out instead and works through them on site.
We cover New Jersey and the wider tri-state area including New York City.
— Service area & quotes
Send the text you want exactly as it should appear — spelling, punctuation and any license or DOT numbers. Lettering is cut from that text literally, so a typo agreed at proof stage is a typo on the vehicle.
If there is old lettering on the panel already, mark it. Removing previous vinyl and its adhesive is its own step before anything new goes on.
Where we work most
OUR SHOP
5 W Baltimore Ave, Ste 301 Linden, NJ 07036
Prefer to talk it through?
— FAQs
On a personal vehicle used for work, magnets have a real place — they come off when you want the car back. On a working commercial vehicle they are a compromise: they can lift at highway speed, they trap moisture against the paint, and a panel left on for months can mark the finish underneath. We supply them, and we will tell you honestly when applied lettering is the better answer.
Yes, where the paint is sound. Vinyl lifts with heat and the adhesive comes with it. The exception is a panel that was already failing, and a very old set can leave adhesive that needs working off — which is part of why removing previous lettering is quoted as its own step.
Longer than most people expect, because there is far less material on the panel than a wrap and nothing bridging a seam. Washing habits matter more than age — hand washing and keeping a pressure washer off the edges is most of it. We tell you what the vinyl going on yours is rated for.
Often the same day once the layout is agreed. The cutting is fast; what takes the time is settling the wording and the proof. Send the text exactly as it should read and that stage shortens considerably.
Yes. Adding a phone number, a new license number or updated DOT details to a wrapped vehicle is routine, and it is far cheaper than reprinting a panel. The vinyl goes onto the laminate rather than the paint and lifts off the same way.
It gets redrawn. Lettering is cut along paths, so a photograph or a low-resolution image cannot be cut from at all — unlike printing, where a poor file just looks soft. The studio rebuilds the mark as cut-ready artwork first.
Cut vinyl works on glass, and so does frosted etched-effect vinyl if you want something more discreet. For larger coverage across a rear window, perforated film lets a graphic sit on the glass while the driver still sees out.
Where a vehicle cannot be spared, or a yard has several to work through at once, yes. The bay is quicker for a single vehicle, and temperature matters for adhesion, so on a cold week we would rather have the vehicle indoors.
That is one of the main things lettering is for. One layout is drawn once and re-cut to each body, so a yard of different makes and door shapes still reads as one business, and anything added later is cut from the same file. See fleet graphics.
