[[kicker]]On the Job [[hed]]A Sign of the Times [[bridge]]Large-format vinyl print gives sign painters a run for their money By Ethan Elliott [[mug]] Ethan Elliott is Associate Editor for Digital Graphics magazine. In the sequels to the movie The Terminator, newer technologies were invented that threatened to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger's robotic character. Luckily, he always managed to pull through. A similar development in the digital printing industry is about to encroach upon classic "wall dog" sign painters. A recent 16' vinyl print mounted to an exterior brick wall by Large Format Digital (LFD), a printer in Madison, Wis., could spell the beginning of Judgment Day for the hand-paint artists who've dedicated their lives to painting large signs onto brick building exteriors. The "Rise of the Machines" was initiated after Joseph Krupp Construction of Madison asked a traditional sign painter for an estimate on a 19th century hand-lettered wall mural. The design was based upon a 1934 litho-print calendar and would be mounted on the exterior of Madison's historic Kennedy Place building. "He hired an artist to do the job, but the guy was going to charge 10's of thousands of dollars, and the artist would have had too much control," recalls Jeff Rank, president of LFD. The sticker-shocked Krupp then turned to Rank. His timing was just right. WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY For the past 13 years, LFD has been looking for a way to make vinyl adhere to brick. The company's first building had a brick and stucco surface, and Rank was "always playing with ways of getting film to adhere to that brick wall." The problem was two-fold. Not only did they need to find an adhesive that would bond brick with vinyl, they also needed a film that was conformable enough to cover the 1/2" variations common in brick walls. "We weren't able to find the right product for this application until recently," says Rank, who has always used 3M Scotchprint Fleet film. When his company moved to a new building three years ago, Rank began experimenting with Avery products. He says he discovered that Avery MPI 1005 EZ Cast White Vinyl performed better for his demanding compound-curve applications. He now had his film. At the time, LFD was a three-man operation that did about 80 percent vehicle graphics. Perfecting the vinyl-to-brick technique has allowed him to expand to 15 employees over the past 24 months. While they had used the new method before, a 16' mural would be its first true test. With publication and broad exposure in mind, Rank priced the brick application "very aggressively." Without giving numbers, he admits that over half the cost went into installation. But before the Kennedy Dairy cart gets ahead of its horse, let's talk about production. GETTING IT DONE The original calendar litho-print image was handed off to production manager Chris Moore, who used a Linotype-Hell Sapphire scanner to produce a 2400-dpi, 48-bit digital image, which he imported using a Dual G5 Mac with 8 GB of RAM. "One of the most difficult things was file prep," says Moore, who was skeptical about attaining a proper output size from such a small litho-printed image. He used Genuine Fractals plug-in software to enlarge the print in Photoshop, then turned to Adobe Illustrator to create an EPS file. "We were all amazed by how good it looked when it was finished. We definitely had our work cut out starting from an image like that," says Moore, who passed the giant file along to print manager Patrick Cassidy. Cassidy processed the file using Onyx Production House 6 RIP, then sent it to his Mutoh Toucan 87"-wide solvent-based printer. A set of test proofs were printed and run through a Pro-tech Orca II laminator and sent back to production for a look-over before being taken to the client for approval. Cassidy's challenge was one of color management, finding colors that matched the brick at Kennedy Place. During the approval stage, what could have spelled catastrophe for a sign painter set the digital team back about an hour. Text in the proof image contained the wrong dates, but Moore, who returned to his EPS file, replaced "1914" with "1904". The incorrectly-dated proof was then mounted on the shop wall as a test. The final file was printed from the Toucan in four panels of 54"-wide Avery 1005 film. The bleeds were designed to overlap about the space of one brick, so the seems would fall into grout areas and minimize visible lines on the final print surface. HAIR DRYERS AND FINGERS Meanwhile, Rank and three of his installers took multiple steps to prepare the porous surface, clearing dust, sealing and priming. Site preparation took almost a week and a half, according to Rank, but yielded a final look nearly identical to the original brick surface. Even using a professional installation team -- capable of wrapping three semi trucks in a single day -- Rank says the job took two. The 54" panels were installed in horizontal sections. One of the installers, Nathan Engelke, explains how they made the vinyl stick so well to the brick surface. "It wasn't too hard. We used a special primer (developed by LFD) to seal the brick so the vinyl would stick to the wall. Then we used our hands and fingers to work the vinyl into the brick's mortar areas. Hair dryers and fingers, sort of like laying rivet," says Engelke, who had to make sure the vinyl was firmly pressed into each contour or the graphic could lift. Because Kennedy Place was under construction, they had access to two scissor lifts, which allowed them to plug their heat guns in and move freely over the wall-face. The film's adhesive had a 48-hour drying window, which worked perfectly for the two-day install. The final product looks amazingly similar to a hand-painted surface. HASTA LA VISTA, BABY After the project was finished, the team shared thoughts on doing such a huge mural on brick, and on the potential impact to the sign industry. Because the print has an eastern exposure, Rank expects to surpass the film's four-year rating by about six years, although he says fading isn't necessarily a bad thing, because the mural is supposed to look like an old, weathered painting. Cassidy adds that if the customer requests changes in the future, vinyl is much easier to remove than paint. "The EZ film is a dream once you conform it into the state you want it to be in," says Rank, who thinks brick application is now almost as easy as mounting over cement block, which already has a number of viable sealants. "Every high school wall in America has that paint. What's unique about brick is the depth and variation of changes," he says. Now he's got his eye on the sign industry. "Even in the pages of Digital Graphics magazine, I've read articles that say there are less and less painters out there. But the demand for their services doesn't go away. Without competition, the price for their talent has been driven so high, we can afford to experiment," says Rank. Mary Yost, project manager for LFD, agrees. "Our product isn't well-enough known yet to affect a lot of sign painters," she says. "But I imagine in the long-run it will affect their industry." As for the future of Large Format Digital, Rank says he's looking at expanding production capabilities and increasing his workforce by the end of the year. As for Arnold and the wall dog sign painters -- they didn't even offer an, "I'll be back." [[images and captions]] [[cover LFD_cover]] This 16' vinyl print was mounted on brick using a concept developed by Large Format Digital, of Madison, Wis. Read the full article on page XX. [[image LFD_Building]] The 30,000-square foot headquarters of Large Format Digital. [[image Calendar]] The design started with an image published in a 1934 litho-print calendar, which was scanned on a Linotype-Hell scanner and enlarged using Genuine Fractals. [[2 images LFD_Print and Proof_color]] A set of proofs were printed on one of LDF's Mutoh Toucan 87 solvent-based printers, then run through a Pro-tech Orca II laminator. Finding colors that matched the brick at Kennedy Place was the key to color-managing this project. After printing the proof, they realized that the date (1914) was incorrect. [[image LFD_Jeff-Chris-Patrick]] Large Format Digital president Jeff Rank (left) stands with Chris Moore and Patrick Cassidy (right). The three examined the proof print before sending it to the client for approval. [[image Proof_wall]] As a test, the proof image was mounted on the wall at LFD. [[image LFD_Brick1]] After cleaning the brick surface, special sealant and primer coats were applied to the wall before the image was mounted. It took three installers two days to complete the job. [[image LFD_Zoom]] Chris Moore used Genuine Fractals to enlarge a scan of the 1932 litho-print calendar to its final size. The blow-up worked so well, the text on the carriage is still readable. [[choose image LFD_Night1 or LFD_Night2]] One wonders, as night closes in around the brick-mounted vinyl print, how much longer the wall dogs have before the sun goes down on them.