The Story of our Beginning

Our story begins at the local skate shop’s sticker counter. We would spend our lunch money on stickers, and stick them on our boards and things around the house. We collected some of the stickers just because they were so cool!

As we got older and started to drive and travel abroad, our ventures took us to Southern California beaches and places like Hawaii and Las Vegas. We now had cars to put stickers on, and the sticker collection grew.

Then in 1996, while working at a restaurant and trying to figure out what direction life was going to take us.. one of our founders met someone in the automotive graphics industry, which led us to meet someone in visual advertising / vinyl sign making. An idea was born: Start a vinyl sticker company!

We started making what are most commonly known as “die cut stickers”, or vinyl transfer stickers, and vinyl lettering; making car window decals and making stickers for a few local retailers.

Then one night after a Ska music show, members of our team met the members of an up-and-coming band called The Aquabats! We started making stickers for them, which led us to doing work for another Ska band, and soon after, a few prominent companies in the surf, skateboard, and apparel industry.

We were starting to grow, but had not quite nailed down a name for our business yet. We were only making vinyl stickers & graphics at the time. The other shops all seemed to have graphics or designs in their names, but none of them had Vinyl, which was our primary medium.

We were also thinking it was crazy that there were so many things we could make with vinyl: Stickers, Vehicle Graphics, Signs, Window Lettering and more! Thinking of all the crazy things we could do with the vinyl, and as a tribute to one of our favorite Ska / New Wave bands Madness, we made Vinyl Mayhem the official named our business.

Then, the unexpected happened: Our music clients got signed, and suddenly the band's merchandise orders were being handled by the record companies. It was a big loss. Right around that time, however, customizing import cars was becoming popular. We had a Honda Civic and were beginning to customize ours. We began making import racing style vehicle graphics and applying them to the sides of cars.

In 1998, we went to the local import drag racing event, "Battle of the Imports" with a few of the cars we installed custom graphics on, and caught the attention of a few motorsport performance companies. We soon began making products for those companies. We also began to emerge into the extreme sports, clothing/apparel, off-road, and boat manufacturing markets. 

This led to us being invited to the SEMA show in Las Vegas, and eventually working directly with many manufacturers in the automotive aftermarket and OEM industry. Before filming began, we consulted producers on the first Universal Pictures' blockbuster movie The Fast and the Furious.

As business dynamics and our focus changed, we added signs, wide format printing, t-shirts/silkscreen printing, vehicle wraps, wall graphics, and graphic supplies into our product line. Between all our designs, vinyl colors, and product types offered.. we have thousands of product options!

From a local skate shop’s sticker counter, to working with international automotive manufacturers, our focus has always been to make the best products for our customers that we can make at affordable prices. Check out our vast selection of designs and products to find the one that is just right for you, or contact us for your project’s needs.