'The Science of Big': Vinyl Building Wraps Become Center of Attention at 2002 Winter Olympic Games
ProGrafix International, Inc., a graphics firm located in Layton, Utah, had been creating large format graphics on buildings, floors, buses, trailers, banners and signs for high-end customers since 1997. But when the company learned about a plan conceptualized by the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Committee (SLOC) and entered the competition for a larger-than-life print job, it was clear that the project might be ProGrafix’ most demanding and thrilling assignment ever.
Robert Finley, director of SLOC’s “Look-of-Games” group, said the Committee wanted to attempt something that would differentiate the Salt Lake City Winter Games from past Olympics. “We wanted to do something pure and appropriate to the collective feeling of the country at that time,” Finley said, referring to the post-September 11 mood in the United States and overseas. “The large images of young athletes, devoid of any commercial references, were meant to become a grand monument to the athletes and sport in general.”
“Singular banners on buildings had been used in prior Games, but never a landscape of banners. The concentration of buildings in downtown Salt Lake provided the perfect canvas, set against the dramatic backdrop of the mountains, on which to project graceful photographs of the Olympic athletes and sports,” said Kathleen Hunter, Look of the Games’ Cityscape project manager.
More than twenty top large-format printers from around the world went through a bid process to convince SLOC that they were capable of producing and installing more than a dozen building wraps featuring winter sports athletes by the time 2002 Olympics’ opening ceremony lit up the Salt Lake City skyline. Thanks to ProGrafix’s previous successful performance with large-scale banners, the company was selected to help the Committee make its “Big Idea” come true.
The company faced a task ahead that involved everything from printing and attaching huge image wraps to buildings to getting a special permit from the State of Utah that would allow it to adorn the city walls during the Winter Games. Between unpredictable low temperatures and the challenges of the actual wall installation, ProGrafix president Wayne Boydstun had to make sure the material he would use could withstand climatic fluctuations and be strong enough to remain attached to a building wall for more than four months.
In addition to overall quality and durability, the material’s printability had to be taken into account. When asked what materials were considered for the project, Boydstun said vinyl was his first – and only – choice. Having used it for years, he had grown to appreciate the vinyl material for its strength and durability and resistance to varying weather conditions. Furthermore, vinyl had already been proven as the material of choice in wallscaping and wall mural settings in the United States and Europe. “Vinyl was the only way to go,” Boydstun said. Eventually, three types of the material were used for the Olympic project: self-adhesive vinyl, perforated self-adhesive vinyl and vinyl mesh.
To ensure the wraps could withstand high winds and low temperatures, ProGrafix put multiple substrata of vinyl sheet together to achieve best possible performance and durability. But even with weather forecasts developed months in advance, nature’s unpredictable side made itself felt. At one point it became so cold that the adhesive used for one of the wraps shattered and the image had to be reprinted on another collection of vinyl pieces only four days before the Olympics’ Opening Ceremony.
Printing parts of such oversized images – a whole building wrap can be 150 x 300 feet – is in itself a tedious and time-consuming task, even for the company whose motto is “The Science of Big.” The process starts when digital photographs are printed, scanned, color-crafted and then applied onto the vinyl sheet with outdoor-use ink. For instance, a large image of a female figure skater took about 10 days to print on the company’s 16-feet-wide Vutek printer, a machine capable of producing images of any size at the rate of 600 square feet per hour. The large female skater image, produced on the 9-ounce vinyl mesh material provided by Duracote (Ravenna, Ohio), had to be assembled with 30 smaller vinyl mesh pieces that were sewn together and attached to the building using 1,500 clamps to create one gigantic mural. The clamps allowed installers to leave the building walls intact and proved very effective in tightly stretching out the wrap. The clamps were also the tool of choice of those building owners who agreed to have the vinyl wraps installed on the walls but did not want to have any holes in them.
In the end, 14 building wraps went up in Salt Lake City and Ogden – all produced within the six weeks prior to the Olympics’ opening ceremony. All depicted young amateur athletes or athlete wannabes shot by photographer John Huet exclusively for the Olympic wrap project. ProGrafix also handled the Olympic torch relay graphic, the Olympic logo and mascot rollout and hundreds of other vinyl banners. With the 2002 Winter Olympic Games now history, the wraps are stored in a warehouse. Thanks to vinyl’s recyclability, the images may one day be used as raw material for souvenirs, handbags or new windows, pipe and other useful construction materials.
For more information about ProGrafix projects and capabilities visit the company’s Web site at www.thescienceofbig.com.