Business - Applications

Earlier this year, inspirational Headmaster Alec Cottrill of Smithills School sought the services of strategic marketing agency nxo which resulted in a campaign to promote positivity and confidence in his school. To create the greatest impact, the Headmaster chose to keep the whole project under wraps until its launch during the May Bank Holiday.

The project involved designing and producing exterior and interior banners with inspirational messages alongside brochures and a DVD outlining the school’s achievements and aspirations.

Paul Turner Displays, working closely with design agency Wash Design, produced mesh and PVC banners for the exterior of the building as well as for key areas within the school. The installation was interesting, as some of the very tricky locations on exterior stairwells had to be fitted using a 16 metre cherry picker! Also, the school did not want any holes in their walls so all the interior banners were applied using a variety of hidden fixings.

The banners were all scheduled to be hung on specific days over the Bank Holiday weekend, and a programme of events was then organised for when the pupils and staff returned after the break. The initial plan was for a two day installation but by doubling the fitting workforce and stretching the working day to late evening all the banners were fitted in one day, much to the caretakers delight as he could then go on his holidays a day early!

Following this - to further increase the profile and image of the school - they expanded their “Positivity” campaign by negotiating the use of an empty shop in the Bolton Shopping Centre for two weeks, free of charge. Paul was responsible for the production and installation of hanging banners and vinyl graphics displaying Smithills School’s achievements to be viewed by the public in Bolton.

Lynsey Thompson from Wash Design commented, “The school was delighted with the production of the banners and how smoothly the installation went, as well as the commitment Paul Turner Displays demonstrated in ensuring the banners were put up so quickly.  Also, the feedback from pupils, parents and staff has been very positive and the campaign is proving a real success.”

For more information visit www.paulturnerdisplays.co.uk

To celebrate passing the milestone of 500 followers on Twitter, Sihl Direct UK has announced a 10% 'across the board' discount for its social media community.  Up until 30th September 2012, Sihl Direct UK will announce a unique password on Twitter each morning which customers can quote to gain the discount.

Ian Turnbull, Operations Director for Sihl Direct UK, comments, “Our Sales Manager, Dean Keenan has put a lot of effort into Twitter and has accumulated more than 500 followers in a very short time. By creating an offer that is exclusive to our Twitter followers, we aim to say a thank you for following us and also look to further increase our following.”

The 10% discount is available on all Sihl Direct UK products, including the Trisolv range for solvent printer, Polysol for Latex and even the latest Vivalux range ideal for backlit printing on latex printers.

The promotion starts immediately and runs through until 30th September. Follow either @SihlDirectUK or @keenan_dean to find the first unique password.

PayneShurvell, one of the UK’s most innovative contemporary art galleries turned to Robert Horne Group, a PaperlinX company, for help selecting and sourcing the materials required for a key exhibit for a show at its Shoreditch gallery.

The show, called Islands of Swarm, is a joint venture between PayneShurvell, the Berlin based artist Kai Schiemenz and architects Casper Muller Kneer; perhaps best known for their RIBA award winning design of White Cube, an exhibition space and gallery in Bermondsey.

The exhibition explores the many facets of stadiums, arenas, auditoriums and related architectural forms including their history, social role and relationship with the people who use them. Drawing on Kai Schiemenz’s extensive archive and specially designed to make the best use of the space at the PayneShurvell gallery, as a sponsor, Robert Horne Group worked closely with the gallery team to specify and supply the materials needed to create a stunning site-specific art installation. The sculpture, entitled Mr Hyde III was made from white gloss foam PVC, a material recommended by Robert Horne because it is easy to fold, drill and rout.

“Creating a sculptural piece of this scale meant we had to work carefully with the existing gallery space and choose a partner who could advise on the best materials as this was the first time we'd exhibited this kind of artwork in our gallery," says Jo Shurvell the gallery’s co-owner. “It was essential that we worked with a partner that had both the materials expertise as well as the ability to respond within a tight time frame. We were delighted with the response from Robert Horne, it exceeded all our expectations and we look forward to collaborating with them again in the future.”

In today’s fast moving world, it can be necessary to deliver products and services at very short notice indeed. But it’s also essential that quick turnarounds do not mean a lowering in standards, especially when you are dealing with a globally recognised brand such as Lotus.  

Established over twenty years ago, Signtek is one of South East England’s most trusted and innovative suppliers of signage, print and vehicle livery.  Signtek was contacted by the team from Lotus Sport at 5.15pm on a Wednesday evening to ask if it was possible to wrap a Lotus Evora in time for a race in the British GT Championship on the Friday.

The challenge involved the team at Signtek recreating from scratch the artwork using photos for reference and producing the specialist vinyl needed to wrap the car. They also had to strip the car of its existing livery, featuring the previous season’s design and clean it before applying the new wrap - all within a 36-hour period.

Quality was paramount, there was no margin for error - the end result had to reflect Lotus’s standing as a high profile team in the GT Championship.

The pressure was on, Lotus Sport needed the project completed on time in order to transport the car to the word famous Nürburgring in Germany in time for the qualification session.

The wrap for the Lotus Evora was to be produced using Orafol vinyl film, a high impact graphics solution, available exclusively from Robert Horne Group, which offers exceptional rendering, durability and ease of use.

“Talk about pressure! We got on the phone to the guys at Robert Horne and they pulled out all the stops to ensure the specialist vinyl we needed was with us at 7am the next morning,” says Chris Manlow, Company Director, Signtek.

The team from Signtek worked round the clock until 3.00am on the Friday morning, during which time they produced the graphics to the specification of Lotus, stripped off the old livery and wrapped the vehicle in a black and gold finish utilising the Orafol vinyl which arrived as promised.

Thanks to Robert Horne Group’s fast and efficient service, the Orafol vinyl needed to wrap the Lotus Evora was supplied overnight. The vinyl performed perfectly and Signtek’s trained and experienced vehicle wrappers were able to get the job finished by 5am on the Friday morning.

Signtek is committed to pulling out all of the stops to deliver projects on time even when the deadline is tight, with no compromise on quality. After a full 20 hour shift, the Evora was ready to be transported to the Nürburgring, where it qualified in the fastest time and came third overall in that race of the British GT.

“Not only does Orafol vinyl give great end results, it is easy to use and cost-effective for us to install. The first class product, coupled with outstanding service from Robert Horne, ensured that we delivered the project on time with no compromise on quality,” says Manlow.

This was the first time that Lotus had approached Signtek and they were delighted with the result (both of the wrap and the car’s performance). Signtek has since completed a second wrap for Lotus and has been asked to wrap another race car imminently.

By teaming up with Coca-Cola, Hollywood Monster helped to guarantee a spectacular and colourful welcome to hundreds of thousands of visitors to the London Olympic Games.   The Birmingham-based company created graphics to cover the entire length of a pedestrian bridge on behalf of the world's biggest beverage company.  Hollywood Monster also worked alongside retail giants Westfield on many other graphics projects for the prestigious £1 million-plus scheme in the build up to, and during, the world’s greatest celebration of sport.

The 'Coca-Cola' bridge links Stratford rail station to the huge Westfield shopping mall directly adjacent to the Olympic Park.  Dressing the link bridge was the most complex project ever completed by Hollywood Monster.  On the project, the company's commercial director, Simon McKenzie, comments,  “It has been amazing to work alongside Coca-Cola and Westfield on what has to be our most satisfying achievement to date. The project was first briefed into us in January and we had to come up with a plan to dress the entire bridge - from the Underground station into the Olympic Park - with graphics."

“The bridge is very unusual in the fact that it is predominantly glass but also has light boxes built into it, and on the one side of the bridge the glazing twists and falls away at an angle towards the Network Rail lines below. We print-tested five to six new fully sustainable materials and worked alongside Westfield’s design and construction team testing the material on the bridge, and carried out prolonged testing for thermal stress to the glazing,” he continues.

“We agreed on a suitable material, and now all 1,000 square metres of production is on a fully sustainable material that has no PVC content, with a scratch free laminate that is also PVC free. We looked at various methods including running a lightweight tension frame directly into the steel girders, only to be told that no drilling was allowed on the main structure, and there was nothing for us to clamp directly to," he adds.

“We then came up with plan B. This basically consisted of vinyl graphics with laminate to be applied directly to the bridge. This method had issues of its own as the bridge is on a gradient and rises from 2.8m high at each end to 4.4m high in the middle. To make things worse, the floor rises and slopes also, making it very difficult to align the graphics over two elevations spanning 125m each.

“We created a CAD drawing of each individual glass panel. This consisted of over 160 individual measurements. We then used laser technology to measure the gradient of the floor to come up with some solid plans to Coca-Cola’s agency in Atlanta to start creating the artwork. The artwork is basically following the torch relay across the country, with images of all the key places visited during the relay journey.”

The process from start to finish took nearly three months from initial surveys to full completion due to the complexity of the job and the restricted working times.

For more information on Hollywood Monster, please visit www.hollywoodmonster.co.uk.

When the Arts Council England South West approached artists Becky Adams, David Mackie and Heather Parnell to commission a public work of art in the form of hundreds of different deckchairs to be sited on Weymouth’s promenade during the 2012 Olympic Games, its intention was to engage participants in creating unique patterns which - when combined - had an overall design quality.

Weymouth & Portland achieved the honour of hosting the Olympic sailing events, so considerable effort went in to decorating and presenting the town.  Through a series of workshops connecting the artists with local residents, schools, special needs centres, churches and groups, a number of ideas and themes for the deckchairs emerged. Local artists Sandra Stalker (a printmaker) and Kim Edwards (a textile artist) worked alongside Becky, David and Heather and assisted the workshop participants in exploring those aspects that make Weymouth and Portland distinct – and it was these that resulted in the creation of the three main themes: local architecture, seaside activities / nostalgia and the seashore.

The artists gathered the material from the residents and developed the two core aspects of the project: ensuring a collective quality to the mass result, whilst maintaining the original creator’s idea. Delivering such a variety of designs – all unique – required investigation into production methods and digital textile printing was deemed the only viable route. Traditional methods would have been far too cumbersome and costly; the beauty of digital production ensured the quality of design was maintained, that vibrant, consistent and long lasting colours were achieved and the project kept to budget.

Heather Parnell and her fellow lead artists on the project have extensive experience of public art commissions and residencies.  She comments, “We liked this project because it looked like it would not only be fun, but give us a chance to embrace colour and seaside culture - from Punch & Judy to the prehistoric fossils of the Jurassic coast.  Additionally, we were also very interested in working with – and finding out more about - industrial print and textiles.”

The final prints were produced on a Mimaki JV33 wide format dye sublimation printer. Whilst digital print was the only viable production method, it still presented a challenge as every single piece of artwork required preparing individually, but as Parnell confirms, it had enormous advantages.  “Manufacturing the deckchairs in the UK and producing them digitally was a great example of the wonderful versatility of contemporary commercial print. I did my first degree in fine art printmaking and a screen printed process could not have coped with so many individual designs.”

Although the core drive for this project was creative and community involvement, close tabs still needed to be kept on the costs. Parnell notes that this was only possible with the use of digital production. “Modern digital processes can provide single prints without set up costs breaking the bank.”

International visitors - as well as the local residents of Weymouth and Portland - have taken the finished works to heart, enjoying the new addition to their famous promenade and sharing photographs and opinion via blogs and social media sites. The project blog at http://olympicdeckchairs.tumblr.com has had visits from around the world and shows off a range of images taken as the project evolved throughout the last 18 months.

Parnell concludes, “Digital print has changed the possibilities of what is produced and by whom. The intensity and fastness of colour, sharpness of images, scale of production, small print runs, turnaround time and cost make it a very versatile, high quality and attractive option.”

The deckchairs will feature throughout the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics on the Georgian seafront in Weymouth – home of the sailing and windsurfing regatta.