The icon for this year’s annual Greater Louisville Inc.  (GLI) Inc.credible Awards was the venerable and versatile fleur-de-lis.

While it may look great on a football helmet or atop a standard, it was not only used as a logo, but as an on-stage backdrop for the small business awards gala held to honor the winners on Sept. 12.

Rendered at around 10 feet high for the banquet, the fleur-de-lis icon would not be applied to a conveniently smooth and flat surface. Instead, the backdrop would be built with 36 frosted plexiglass panels, all brought together into one framework unit.

GLI turned to one of its sponsors, Spectra Imaging, to see if a giant version of its fleur-de-lis could be somehow applied to the backdrop.

The solution was to print the entire graphic on LexJet Simple Adhesive Vinyl SUV – Gloss (5 Mil), laminate it with a textured pressure-sensitive vinyl, send the file to Spectra’s automated cutter/router to cut out the individual panels and adhere each of those graphic panels to a plexiglass panel using a laminator.

“We had a mockup of the piece for reference, and after the graphics had been applied to the panels we numbered the back of each panel, including the blank panels,” says Spectra Imaging founder and CEO Brian Rogers. “We also included a sticker on the back of each panel that indicated where the top of each panel. That way, when they put it all together on the stage they wouldn’t waste any time trying to figure out how each panel was supposed to go into the framework.”