Big, Bright And Can't Be Missed
We'll let the pictures do the talking on this one. Big wall, big mural. When Piko Wholefoods had their badly damaged Barbadoes street premises red stickered, they needed to find a new home. You'd be hard pushed to find a person who couldn't find them here. We printed this artwork a few years back for their old premises, but this version is simply stunning. It's printed with latex ink on self adhesive vinyl, laminated with gloss anti-grafitti film and mounted to aluminium composite panels. We also did the front fascia, street pole sign and lightbox.
Greening Digital Printing
We'd like to introduce a recent addition to our line-up. HP in recent years have been pushing more environmentally conscious large format digital printing solutions. One of their biggest drives has been latex ink printers. Surprise surprise, the picture above happens to be one. The environment is not exactly being kind to us at the moment here in Christchurch, but we are still looking to improve our stance towards it. The HP Scitex LX850 uses waterbased latex ink, yet the finished prints are comparable to mild and eco solvent as far as scratch reststance and durability goes. It's our second latex machine. Without boring you to death with details, we get high resolution prints (truly stunning), with brilliant colour, durable for indoor and outdoor use including vehicles and then add to that the fact it does a great job on fabrics which is enhanced by it's ability to image on material up to to 3.2 metres wide (that's billboard size!!!).
Keeping The Grain
Here is a great printing job we supplied for the Nando's Riccarton restaurant, which demonstrates printing directly to timber. The concept was to allow the grain of the wood to show through and become part of the graphic. This is a fantastic example of the strength of direct printing, and also using printing with white ink. The window graphic is a clear adhesive film. We used white ink , but not as a flood fill because we wanted a degree of transparency for the colours.
Myriorama
We like a good challenge, and this one is no exception. The very clever Bruce Edgar came to us with a project he was working on for local Christchurch artist Julia Morison. The piece was to be exhibited at the Sydney Biennale 2010. The catch was it involved a massive amount of panels, intricate detail and it had to be accurate. After a series of tests we were ready to print. It was displayed in the Sydney Opera House... see details below.
Stand Back!
This ranger can do what no other ranger can. Stand still on the spot 24/7. These images are of signs recently installed at Franz Josef Glacier to keep it's visitors informed and safe. The signs and lifesize cutout are manufactured to withstand the demanding environment. For more information about our interpretation signage options click here.
A Matter Of Perspective
This is a great example of using perspective. What was a once a dull stairwell wall is now a treat to the eye. We worked with International Buddhist Association (IBA) Christchurch, to bring their concept to reality. Some careful tweaking was required to get the illusion to work. We produced the image on ACM panels which are fixed to the wall. To help get your head around it, the bottom shot is looking from the top floor, showing the complete mural from ceiling right down to the tiled floor. The first image is taken standing back in the top floor walkway leading to the stairs. The illusion is an extended walkway.
A Day In The Sun
What a great day! We've endured a lot of aftershocks for nearly two months and this was a welcome break. It was a really good day as the sun shone, the bands played and the ground didn't move. The Band Together concert turned out around 140,000 people. New Zealand has some damn good musicians. Who would have thought The Exponents would be finishing a concert with Christchurch (in cashel street I wait) 25 years after it was recorded. For those who don't know what it was about... Band Together was a free concert for the people of Canterbury which featured some of New Zealand's top musicians. The purpose was to give Cantabrians a day to try to forget about their stress caused by the earthquake and chill out for a day.
True Colours
In previous articles, I covered how we control colour with software and hardware using design programs and the printers. There is another important piece of hardware too. It's a colour matching booth. Not a weird device that you climb inside and lock the door, but rather a station that has special fluorescent tubes that illuminate vertically mounted prints and proofs from above. The big problem to overcome with manual hardcopy matching of colour is the lighting conditions. There are so many different conditions, fluoresecent warm to cool tubes, halogen, daylight sunny and cloudy, incadescent blubs and now led lighting which all emit different colour. There is no easy solution but a good start is an industry standard, which just happens to be D50 or more commonly known as daylight.
Exposition Zing
Here are images from a project we produced for Strategy Design and Advertising. CPIT were an exhibitor at the Careers Expo 2010. These eye-catching murals are a part of the job that we produced. They pretty much speak for themselves.
Adgraphix Wins International Award
We were the only Australasian competitor to gain a placing in the inaugural HP Digital Print Awards 2010 (Asia Pacific & Japan). The awards were open to owners of HP Scitex industrial printers in the Asia Pacific and Japan regions. This makes for a massive customer base eligible to enter. There were 5 categories with gold, silver and bronze being awarded in each. We entered our bronze winning Glassons Westfield Riccarton entry in the 'Interior Advertising' category.
