This work focuses on the characterization of the appearance and the topography as well as the establishment of structure/property-correlations of coil coated metal sheets with different build-up. The effect of deformation on the visual appearance and the topography was investigated. The visual appearance was determined using an optical profilometer. For the characterization and analysis of the coatings surfaces confocal and scanning electron microscopy were applied. For undeformed sheets it was shown that the visual appearance is mainly affected by the layer build-up. Regarding structure/property-correlations a deformation induced decrease of distinctness of image (DOI) values associated by an increase in vertical roughness fluctuations and a decrease in lateral roughness fluctuations was obtained. For coatings with a hard top clear coat shear band formation was found and described applying high resolution confocal microscopy.