Getting the Most out of Wall Spaces with Print-N-Stick Fabric

Curious George Exhibit on Print-N-Stick

Once you start, you can’t stop. That’s been the experience for the Orlando Science Center with custom-printed wall murals for its permanent and traveling exhibits.

OSC Curious George Exhibit ColumnThe first big hall entrance mural project was for a Star Wars traveling exhibit (Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination), and since that time the Orlando Science Center has found great value in more wall murals throughout the facility, providing identification, atmosphere, visual interest, more interactivity and boosting sponsorship activity.

“The wall murals help in a lot of ways. First, it’s a big location identifier for us. We have an unusual building with a central rotunda that has a spiral staircase with a lot of glass and light. We had been using wall signs outside the halls that were 6′ x 3′ vinyl banners that we would change out, which was better than the small signs we originally used by the doors. Once we started doing these full-size murals by the hall entrances for the exhibits – and with them being such a focal point and life-sized – there was no going back,” explains Eric Vickers, Creative Manager for the Orlando Science Center. “It gives us a lot more atmosphere than just the blank walls, and it’s great for sponsorships, especially with traveling exhibits. We’re getting local exhibit sponsors again, and this provides much more visibility for them, so they are not only in our related collateral materials, but also in front of the exhibit space itself nice and big on the wall. So that’s been a great selling point.”

Exhibit Wall MuralVickers adds that most of the photographic and illustrative elements they use for the murals can print life-size so visitors interact with the murals and take photos of themselves with the characters depicted in the murals, such as the murals for the recent Curious George: Let’s Get Curious exhibit.

“With Curious George we printed out a couple of life-size Curious Georges that go up about seven feet on the columns inside the exhibit so there are additional thematic elements to brighten up the hall,” says Vickers.

Engineer It! Wall MuralThat first Star Wars wall mural was printed on LexJet PolyGloss PSA with a Canon iPF9100 inkjet printer. Since then, most of the murals have been printed on LexJet Print-N-Stick Fabric, though PolyGloss PSA is still used for murals that require a glossy finish and opacity, such as an upcoming interactive exhibit experience about Mars called Space Base.

“The Space Base exhibit murals are printed on the PolyGloss because we needed it to be completely opaque; there are seams and a darker-color paint on the wall behind the mural. We also wanted a gloss finish so that it looked more like a window looking out onto the surface of Mars, and to have a clean, space station feel,” says Vickers.

Inkjet Wall Mural
The Orlando Science Center’s Meeting & Events wall, also printed on LexJet Print-N-Stick Fabric, is located next to the Center’s big terrace on the fourth floor and serves as a great advertisement for wedding and event rentals next to one of the major spaces in the facility.

The murals pictured here for the Curious George: Let’s Get Curious and the Engineer It! exhibits were printed on Print-N-Stick Fabric where the background colors on the walls were lighter.

“Print-N-Stick is our new favorite thing. It’s a material that holds up well on its own, and helps us provide more color and atmosphere to our walls,” says Vickers. “The fabric has been great because it comes off very easily, but stays put well. It’s a lighter material so it doesn’t have as much weight pulling it off. It also tends to let the air out better and goes down flatter when it’s applied. It really hugs the wall and conforms to it well. We’ve had other adhesive-back materials start to peel down from the top because of their own weight on jobs this size, but we haven’t seen that at all with Print-N-Stick.”

Vickers also uses Print-N-Stick for the main traveling exhibit hall since it changes every four months or so. And, when it’s time to put up a new mural, the old one comes down easily, doesn’t damage the wall or leave any residue behind.

Art at the Point of Sale with Inkjet Printed Canvas

Blue Moon Beer on Canvas by AW Artworks

Each brand has its own aesthetic. The advertising that surrounds that aesthetic should be consistent and appropriate to the brand. In the case of Blue Moon craft beer, the advertising focuses on the craft element, emphasizing a hand-painted rendering of the Blue Moon logo and artwork.

Inkjet Printed CanvasWhat better medium, then, than gallery-wrapped canvas? Tyler Peters, distributor beer merchant for Tenth and Blake Beer Company, the craft and import division of MillerCoors, found the canvas craftsman he was looking for in Andy Wredberg, owner of AW Artworks in Sun Prairie, Wis.

Peters is based in Madison, and wanted point of sale artwork that not only in tune with the Blue Moon aesthetic, but was also in tune with the downtown Madison vibe.

“We wanted to create something a lot different than a standard neon sign or banner; something that conveys what we should see in the Madison market,” says Peters. “The artwork ties into a food festival we have here in Madison called Isthmus a la Carts. We had an interactive Blue Moon mural at the event that consumers – over 21, of course – could paint and enjoy some Blue Moon beer, too.”

Blue Moon Mural
The Blue Moon canvas wraps printed by AW Artworks on Sunset Production Matte Canvas were based on this mural painted by attendees of the Isthmus a la Carts food festival in Madison, Wis.

It was a version of this mural that was sent to Wredberg to print and build the 2′ x 3′ canvas gallery wraps. Wredberg used LexJet Sunset Production Matte Canvas to produce the prints on his Canon iPF8300 44″ inkjet printer.

“They printed beautifully; I was very happy with the look and color saturation of the Sunset Production canvas,” says Wredberg. “They had a pretty tight budget, so I checked on the Sunset Production canvas since I felt it would allow us to get closer to their budget and since it was a longer production run for us.”

Wredberg tweaked the design he received from agency a bit to ensure it fit in the gallery wrap format and wrapped the canvas around 1 1/2″ stretcher bars. Now the 50 canvas gallery wraps are ready to be distributed to various bars in downtown Madison.

Wredberg will also print 50 more canvas gallery wraps to promote Batch 19, a pre-Prohibition style lager. Check back here for photos of the gallery wraps in their environment.

Simplifying Sales and Sidestepping Sign Restrictions with Perforated Window Film

Sears Auto Center Window Graphics by AW Artworks
Nothing fancy here, but these window graphics, printed on LexJet Aqueous Perforated Window Vinyl (70/30) by AW Artworks, get the word out about all of the services this Sears Auto Center provides.

On-premise signage is arguably the most effective way to get the word out about your business to a mobile audience, especially given the fracturing of media through this, that and the other app and social media.

Many businesses struggle with restrictive sign codes or shopping center guidelines that make it difficult to stand out from the crowd. In the case of a Sears Auto Center in Madison, Wis., the mall in which the center is located doesn’t allow much outside of a main ID sign.

The Auto Center tried various types of banners and even a large Michelin Man blow-up, all of which had to be taken down per the mall’s signage rules. So the Auto Center’s owner turned to Andy Wredberg, owner of AW Artworks, based down the road in Sun Prairie, Wis.

Though this type of project is not in AW Artworks’ wheelhouse, as Wredberg puts it, he wanted to help and try something outside his wheelhouse, which is primarily fine art and photo reproductions.

“They had some mismatched vinyl lettering on their garage doors and wanted something more attractive to draw more attention to the variety of services they offer,” explains Wredberg. “I talked to Rob Finkel at LexJet and he recommended LexJet Aqueous Perforated Vinyl (70/30), so we ordered a sample and tested it on the window. We ordered a roll of it, laid it out, printed it, sprayed it with a clear, water-based poly and installed it today. It went on easily and it looks sharp. They wanted to be able to see out and it provides some shade inside as well.”

Car Window Graphics
With the leftover window perf material from the Sears project, AW Artworks produced these popular stickers for the back windows of cars for Wisconsin-proud people. Andy Wredberg reports that they’ve sold about a dozen of these.

Now this type of project is squarely in AW Artworks’ wheelhouse, and Wredberg plans to use it on the studio’s sidewalk-facing windows to promote this additional product line. Based on similar window promotions AW Artworks has done in the past for banner stands and canvas wraps, AW Artworks should see more of this type of work in the future.

“I was a little concerned at first because we don’t normally do this type of application. I thought installation would be beyond my skill set, but I just pulled the release liner off a couple of inches to get it started, smoothed it down and was really easy. It only took about an hour,” says Wredberg. “It’s very readable from far away. They’re really a full-service auto center and I don’t think a lot of people realize the capabilities they have, so this will help them.”

Bold, Bright Suite Graphics Light up an Arena

Wall Graphics for Branding and Advertising

Competing for the consumer’s attention is especially intense at public venues like sports arenas and stadiums. Inundated with advertising messages, not to mention the game or event at hand, it can be difficult to stand out and grab someone’s attention.

Coca-Cola Bottling Co. High Country in Rapid City, S.D., found a solution to this vexing challenge at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center in Rapid City: a full wrap of its corporate suite in bold Coca-Cola red.

Inkjet Printed Wall Murals“When we got the suite in January of 2012 we wanted to do something dynamic that would stand out and make it obvious we were in there,” explains Holly LaGrande, marketing manager for Coca-Cola Bottling Co. High Country. “Because we were the first to wrap the inside of one of the suites it was very visible, not only because it was the first one, but because it was so bright and so red. It’s very vibrant, and I was even worried that we overdid it. However, the people at the arena like it and were looking forward to someone doing it because no one had to that point, and the beer companies followed up with their own wraps.”

LaGrande used Photo Tex PSA Fabric – Aqueous Printers from LexJet and printed the wrap in 60″ x 144″ panels. The panels were installed in the suite in two four-hour sessions, which LaGrande did by herself. She says it would have been nearly impossible to apply the graphics by herself with an adhesive-backed vinyl since Photo Tex is repositionable and thus extremely easy to apply and re-apply if necessary.

Adding Graphics to Walls
Before: What a difference a wall mural makes, as you can see in the “after” pictures above.

“First, I had to take out all the light fixtures, door stops and electrical outlets and strip everything out. Then, I started at the top on the far left and applied each panel across. I was able to pull it apart and get it re-applied easily when it bunched up,” says LaGrande.

LaGrande plans to update the graphics for the 2013-2014 hockey season in late summer or early fall and says she’s looking forward to printing the project on the new Canon iPF9400 she picked up from LexJet earlier this year.

Marketing Mystery Solved with Perforated Window Film

LexJet Aqueous Perforated Window VinylFort Stewart’s Family & MWR Marketing team found the ideal solution to a vexing mystery: how to attract as many people as possible to an upcoming murder mystery dinner theater at the army installation near Savannah, Ga.?

The answer was to advertise it on the glass doors leading into the venue that will host the dinner theater this Friday. With one answer down, the next question was how to get the advertising graphic, designed by marketing director Kathy Milley, on the window.

Molly Cooke of Fort Stewart Family & MWR Marketing found that answer at LexJet through her customer specialist Vincent Bejar, who recommended LexJet Aqueous Perforated Window Vinyl (70/30) for the project.

“We were trying to get as much interest in the event as possible, so we ordered this awesome film and this was our first project with it,” says Cooke. “Vincent told us what settings to use on our Canon iPF9100 printer, we printed it, cut it out and applied it.”

Cooke adds that the application went smoothly, particularly given that this was their first attempt applying a window graphic. She says it was easy to smooth out the bubbles in the perforated window vinyl during application. Obviously applied in two pieces, the graphic was adhered to the window from the middle to the outside of each glass door.

“We’re stoked about how this turned out, which is at a facility on the installation called Club Stewart where the event will take place. There’s a restaurant called Thunder Run inside the facility and they host a number of events in it as well,” explains Cooke. “People go through those doors every day at lunch so we thought it was a great location to apply it. Everyone who’s seen it on the door think it’s the coolest thing ever. We’ve gotten great response and ordered a couple more rolls because people want to use it for other promotions. It’s very beneficial to us for marketing events.”

Creating and Applying Bowl-Worthy Graphics that Stick

Applying graphics to a stadium

The AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic has a storied history in the annals of college football. For most of its 77-year history, this big game used to be played in the actual Cotton Bowl Stadium at Fair Park in Dallas, but is now played at the state-of-the-art Cowboys Stadium in Arlington.

Wall graphics for a football gameThe new venue requires an equally state-of-the-art approach to the myriad of graphics that cover the stadium to promote the big game, recognizing the teams and branding the bowl, and that’s where E.H. Teasley & Co. steps in.

E.H. Teasley & Co., based in Dallas, has been producing and installing the graphics for the Cotton Bowl for the past 18 years – the last four at Cowboys Stadium. The difficult and time-consuming task of wall graphics installations at Cowboys Stadium has been much easier with the use of Photo Tex Repositionable Fabric.

Applying graphics to elevator doors“We spent the first two years trying to find something that would adhere to the concrete walls. We tested a material during the summer before the initial opening of the stadium and that material seemed to work perfectly, but when we applied the vinyl a week before the game, in the winter months, the ambient temperature of the concrete had dropped considerably. The next day, we received a call from the Cotton Bowl folks telling us that a majority of our stickers had fallen off the walls. After all of our testing we were very surprised. We found a way to fix the signs that failed, but it made the project much more difficult and time-consuming,” says Jeff Teasley, owner of E.H. Teasley & Co. “In 2011 we were lucky to find PhotoTex. It’s a lighter weight material, and the adhesion properties are so much better than what we used for the prior game. To make sure we were on the right track before the game installation, we took it to a business near us with stucco-type walls. The graphic stayed up there for months in all of the outdoor elements. Seeing this, we felt confident that Photo Tex would do the job. Now we could sleep at night.”

Branding a hotel lobby with large signsThe graphics were printed on the company’s superwide solvent printers, which included a quantity of 352 four foot by four foot die-cut helmets and logos cut on a Zund cutter. These graphics lined the various levels of the stadium, the tunnels where the teams enter the field, as well as the lobbies of the host hotels. The hotel elevators were also branded with Photo Tex graphics.

“The elevator graphics were a lot better with the Photo Tex product. With the vinyl we were using before, people would tend to pick at it because it was thicker, where the Photo Tex is thinner and appeared to be painted on the door. Not one of the Photo Tex Graphics peeled off of any of the elevators. We used the EX version in a couple of places where we thought it might need a little more adhesion, and overall it went very smoothly this year and we were extremely pleased,” adds Teasley.