Zachary Arellano, production manager at Coyle Studios in Towson, Md., found the perfect accent for the ceiling of his room. The question was how to get it on the ceiling relatively easily. The design was a maze Arellano created in Adobe Illustrator, and he didn’t want the application of the maze to be a puzzle.
“I called to order some paper from LexJet and picked Michael’s brain [Michael Clementi, Coyle Studios' customer specialist] to see what would work. He recommended Photo Tex, so I tried it,” says Arellano. “When I put it up, it worked great. I was surprised by how easy it was to work with, especially for something that size.”
The size of the maze art, which actually has a workable solution, is 42″ x 204″. It turns out that the ceiling is the exact width of the roll of material he bought. Arellano included two squares in the maze to account for the light and the smoke detector. Before application, he cut those holes out to fit the material over those obstacles.
“When I was putting it up I was a little nervous at first because when I got to the lights it wasn’t flush where I had already applied it behind me; it was a little askew. With the Photo Tex I was able to back track, pull it off and work my way back to get it lined up right. If I had used anything that adhered permanently there would have been no backtracking,” says Arellano. “I also made a rig to hold up the material while I applied it so it wouldn’t sag too much.”
Arellano has a stash of laser pointers so visitors can try the maze with the pointers. It’s not only a piece of art or an interesting conversation piece, it’s an interactive game of sorts. It was also a great test for the material as Arellano says the company is looking for ways to implement it for commercial wall and ceiling murals and advertising.
