The story of Contra Vision

by



Connectingthe dotsThe leaders in one-way visiongraphics since the year dot Our story began over 30 years ago when Roland Hill, a keen amateur squash player, was driven to make the sport more accessible to a larger viewing audience. Squash is a challenging sport for spectators because the court is traditionally enclosed by opaque walls.

Thinkingoutsidethe boxRoland’s eureka moment was a new one-way visiontechnology, which enabled colours and graphics to bevisible from one side of the glass, while retaining excellentand unobstructed see-through from the other side. Thisled to the construction of the Safe Screen squash court in1982, the world’s first squash court with one-way visionwalls on every side. Spectators could now watch the gamefrom all sides of the court while the players’ view is blockedby the (blue) one-way vision walls.



In 1991 we produced the world’s first “total bus wrap” in NewZealand. The bus was converted into a striking mobile billboardwhich still allowed passengers inside to see out.

It soon became clear that there were manyother opportunities and applications for theinvention including advertising, branding,signs, decorative architectural effects, solarcontrol and one-way vision privacy. Patentsfor his invention were granted from 1984in many countries around the world. In1985 the inventor turned entrepreneur andfounded Contra Vision Ltd to promote andsell products around the world and to licensemulti-nationals including 3M and AveryDennison to use our invention.

30 years onContra Vision remains the world leader inone-way vision and other see-through windowgraphics. What started as an invention to increasethe accessibility of squash, has turned into aglobal advertising phenomenon seen on buses,cars, retail windows and other buildings in over100 countries.



We continue to innovate and supply an unrivalled range of perforated window films to printersand distributors across the world, incorporating high performance product enhancements such as Contra Vision® Grayliner™, to improve printability, visual performance, durability, window adhesion and removability. This was recognised in 2015 by a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the category of innovation. We are the only specialist one-way vision graphics business!