The Big Picture - March 2014 - (Page 8)

upfront upfront A Trio of Super Graphics For the Super Bowl Okay, so the recent NFL Super Bowl XLVIII wasn't the most competitive of matches - but we were able to track down the following three Super Bowl-related projects that proved to be much more exciting than the game itself. It's a numbers game A week before the biggest football game of the year, New York's Times Square was transformed into Super Bowl Boulevard - a football-themed spectacle that enticed millions of people to converge on Broadway between 42nd and 43rd Streets. Waiting to greet them: an illuminated 10-foot-tall sculpture of the Roman numerals XLVIII, fabricated by Ace Sign Company (acesignco.com) of Springfield, Illinois. Ace Sign was selected by the Boulevard event's designer and coordinator, Production Resource Group of New York, to create the iconic numerals. Initial contact about the project was via a series of purposely vague e-mails, says Cory Boatman, Ace Sign's project manager, "all designed to keep the nature of the project under wraps." The numerals, measuring 10-feet tall x 38-feet wide, were fabricated from aluminum and acrylic, with manufacturing techniques that Ace Sign specifically developed to meet the NFL's standards. LED lighting effects were added, which would be synchronized to music. 8 THE BIG PICTURE March 2014 For the faces of the letters' acrylic ribs, Ace Sign needed to replicate the golden pattern that echoed the NFL's official Super Bowl logo - but also had to be sure there would be optimum light transmission through the digitally printed letter faces. The shop utilized its Mimaki JV-3 printer to output onto Orafol OraJet 3651 Clear (two layers), mating that with 3M Fasara San Marino (Milky Milky) decorative glass film (one layer applied to the second-surface, one layer applied to the face). An Orafol OraGuard 210 gloss laminate finished the print work. "Portions of the print gradient went to black. We combined multiple layers of film to achieve maximum brightness and uniformity, while also preventing hot spots from the LED modules," says Scott Bringuet, Ace Signs sales and design manager. When complete, the numerals were delivered to Production Resource Group, which set up for NFL approval and then again for the show in Times Square. "We're a family-owned company, and we used everything learned by all four generations to provide New York City and the NFL with the best quality product," says Boatman. "Our letters were the first thing people saw when they came to Times Square for the Super Bowl Boulevard experience. We're confident no one was disappointed." Showing signs of Seahawk support The die-hard Seahawks fans at FastSigns of Kirkland, Washington, prepped for the Super Bowl by creating and printing "12th-man" banner signs for fans to show their support. "Initially we came up with the idea of printing these banners in support of our Seahawks out of sheer excitement for this weekend's game," says Greg Shugarts, co-owner of the Kirkland FastSigns (fastsigns.com/66kirkland-wa). "They have been a really good customer of ours for many years and we are just so ecstatic they have come this far this season. Our city of Kirkland was the original home for the Seahawk's headquarters - all the more reason we wanted to stand behind them and show them that they have the best fans around." The shop utilized two different printers in producing the 3 x 4-foot banners: its HP Scitex FB700 UV printer as http://www.acesignco.com http://www.fastsigns.com/66-kirkland-wa http://www.fastsigns.com/66-kirkland-wa

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Big Picture - March 2014

The Big Picture - March 2014
Contents
InSight
Wide Angle
Up Front
Inside Output
Business + Management
White-Hot: Five Shops Explore White Ink
Great Ideas: ISA Expo 2014
Front- and Back-End Tools
R+D
Job Log

The Big Picture - March 2014