Six Ways Wall Murals Can Add Sizzle to your Space.
Posted by Rick Sader on June 25, 2010 at 1:19 pmWant to make the most of your interior space? Wall murals are a compelling way to create instant ambiance and convey a message about your personality. Whether you’re relaxing with friends in your living room amid a tranquil forest scene or you want to impress clients at your office with your bold corporate vision, wall murals are a great way to achieve your interior design goals. Here are some ideas on how you can use large-format graphics to enhance your favorite spaces.
Home:
Children’s Rooms—Watch your kids beam with delight when they enter their special room for the first time, and every time after that. Enchant your daughter with a wall of horses grazing in a meadow, or inspire your sporty son with a wall of his favorite baseball players in action. Kids’ rooms can be transformed into a tropical jungle or an underwater paradise, all with the use of vibrant and durable wall murals.
Scenery—Looking to add some urban edge to your abode? Perhaps a black and white image of your favorite city skyline will offer that punch you’ve been looking for. Interested in bringing serenity into your home? A sweeping Tuscan vista could be the perfect fit. Wall murals can turn plain hallways into lush forests, mountain ranges, or soothing tropical beaches. Scenic wall murals don’t just add beauty to a room; they’re also wonderful conversation pieces.
Personal Photographs—You’ve always thought that stunning sunset photo you took on vacation would look amazing as a mural. Make it happen! Turn your digital images into art and your walls into representations of the people and places you love. For example, a mundane laundry room would be much more pleasant space when its walls showcase a larger-than-life tribute to, say, the family pet or last summer’s trip to the lake.
Art/Design—Abstract designs and artistic images are just as good at conveying mood and atmosphere as photographs. Incorporate your favorite colors and motifs into your home with an artistic mural suited to your personality. Decorate your bedroom with a whimsical mural of parrots in flight. Impress guests with a cubist painting filling up a space in your entryway. And why not make your breakfast nook ceiling look like a calming summer sky? The sky really is the limit when it comes to wall designs, so let your imagination run wild.
Business:
Promotional—Do you want to get the word out about your company’s tech expertise? Are you proud of your company’s history or your new logo? The walls of your business can easily be transformed into a captivating, promotional medium that will show your customers or clients exactly what you do best. You can convey a message and visually delight visitors at the same time.
Ambiance—How do you want people to feel when they visit your business? If you’re a dentist and want to instill a sense of calm, you could turn a wall in the lobby into a serene, bubbling brook. If you own a restaurant, you might add atmosphere with a wall showing a scene from your cuisine’s heritage. When you’re hosting customers, you’re in the marketing business. Give people a reason to drop in—with bright, beautifully printed wall graphics that people will remember.
Don’t want to cover an entire wall? You can still add small, contour-cut accent pieces to spruce up what’s there now. Beautiful fall leaves, whimsical snowflakes, or bold, flowing abstract designs are just a few of the possibilities. Because they’re so versatile, wall murals and contour-cut wall graphics provide an effective and visually exciting solution to any interior design challenges you might have. Think of them as a unique way to add character and atmosphere to any room. From serious and subtle to playful and bold, wall murals are the new secret weapon in interior design.
Boost Your Booth: How to Achieve Maximum Visual Impact at Trade Shows
Posted by Rick Sader on May 25, 2010 at 12:37 pmHave you ever attended a trade show and felt like your booth just didn’t quite measure up to your neighbor’s? Then you’ve just experienced “tradeshow booth envy”. Don’t worry…that can be treated.
Imagine being a vendor at the World Travel Market in London. It’s the world’s biggest tradeshow for the travel industry and features over 5,000 international companies displaying exhibits for over 45,000 discerning participants. How do any of them hope to stand out? A great-looking booth is the first step.
Whether you’re in advertising, retail, interior design, or any other industry that uses tradeshows to spread the word about your company’s innovative products, you’ll need to distinguish yourself from the crowd to be successful. Carefully crafted, superior quality visual displays are a great way to give your company the edge. If you have excellent graphics to add impact to your message, people will be more likely to notice your exhibit at the show and, more importantly, remember it later. It’s vital to choose the right combination of media and printing technology to deliver colors that pop and crisp visuals that capture every detail. Here are a few options that will make your next trade show display attention-grabbing and unforgettable:
Seeking a solution with maximum vibrancy and durability at low cost? Try graphics printed on polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP) banner material. They’re made from recycled bottles and printed with water-based inks. And lamination will add protection as well as a variety of finishes including glossy, luster, or semi-matte. Try positioning three or four of these low-cost banner stands together to build one big, knockout image that won’t break your budget.
Graphics mounted to display boards
Keep your graphics looking fresh by mounting them onto sturdy, light-weight display boards. A variety of materials are available. Choose light-weight Gatorboard for ease of transport. Or Sintra for maximum durability. Or try Eco-Board; a strong corrugated display board made from 94% recycled cardboard. Pair that with graphics printed with water-based inks onto our FSC-certified coated paper and you’ll be the greenest exhibitor at the show.
Every aspect of your tradeshow booth should highlight what’s great about your products. Fabric table drapes offer a unique way to give your display a high-end finishing touch. A number of fabrics are available for large-format inkjet printing of your logo and branding message. Egyptian Sailcloth and Venetian Heavy Canvas are two popular polyester fabrics that have the look and feel of canvas.
Want to take advantage of a high-traffic yet under-utilized space for getting your message across? Just look down. Use your floor space to your advantage and give passersby something interesting to look at in an unexpected spot! And don’t worry; they’re non-slip and won’t damage the floor when removed.
You’ve seen these lighted displays at the airport and the mall. They’re a great way to add that extra ‘punch’ to your message. Backlit display boxes for tradeshows are lightweight and allow for easy changing of the graphics. So now you can keep your message fresh from season to season, show to show, or even hour to hour.
Your business is to wow the crowd.
Our business at Lone Eagle Digital Imaging is to help you to do it with flair.
Can Printing Make Good Art Better?
Posted by Rick Sader on May 21, 2010 at 9:18 amFor photographers and traditional artists, presentation is everything. Eye-popping color, crisp definition, and high-quality finishing will make large format photo and fine art reproductions (often known as Giclées) stand out from the rest, no matter what media they’re printed on. Get prints that maintain the integrity of your art and bring your vision to life by choosing a printer that takes the presentation of your art seriously. Here are some qualities to look for in a great printer:
Vibrant Color
Imagine all of the colors that could appear in a photograph or painting of the ocean: cyan, aquamarine, cerulean, cobalt – each a special shade of blue with its own value in the composition. In a photo or fine art reproduction, each shade should appear as distinctly and vibrantly as in the original piece of art. Even if you work with sepia, duotone, or black and white images, a reproduction’s colors should match the original’s to a tee. At Lone Eagle Digital Imaging, we customize our own ICC profiles, ensuring the most accurate, best-looking color you can find.
High Quality Finishes
Set the mood of your art and choose a finish that complements the work. Photographers’ options start with a variety of photo papers. Matte, semi-gloss, luster, and glossy finishes each bring specific textures and looks to the mix, but why stop with photo paper? Putting your photographs on canvas or unique fine art paper could be the perfect way to display your work.
Traditional artists can also choose to step out of the box. If watercolor papers or canvas aren’t your cup of tea, perhaps your work reproduced on a fabric or a translucent window film would show off your work in a unique way.
And no matter what your chosen method is for creating your art, a wall mural with textures like plaster, canvas, leather, suede, or spun silk can turn your artistic vision into a room-transforming masterpiece. The options are mind-boggling and with the right printmaker, your work will look that much better on any medium.
For Giclée printing, we use the Epson 9900 10-color inkjet printer with Epson’s HDR archival inkset, meaning that your prints are created with the state-of-the-art technology and will last for decades.
Support
In no other realm does the adage “what you see is what you get” ring more true than the art world. Make sure you see exactly what you want to see by using a printer who uses cutting edge tools, maintains a standard of excellence, and is passionate about making your art look exactly the way you imagine. Before you commit to having your art printed, make sure it’s the best version of your work. At Lone Eagle we will scan, retouch, and proof your work to make sure that what gets printed is a flawless representation of your design. We will also archive your digital files for free, so your prints will be available “on demand” in the future whenever you want them.
When is a picture worth more than a thousand words?
Posted by Rick Sader on February 12, 2010 at 2:33 pmWhen it’s worth twelve votes….. in the courtroom, that is. To a trial lawyer, getting your point across to the jury is absolutely critical. And most people understand and remember info better when it is presented to them visually. I think we’ve all experienced this in our lives. Can you remember when you tried to explain something verbally to someone? And maybe it just wasn’t sinking in? And then you drew them a picture or showed them a diagram. Sometimes the response you get back is “Oh, NOW I SEE!”
Not convinced? Here’s an example. I’ll describe a traffic accident scene to you and see if you can picture it in your mind. Or maybe even try to sketch it out. Here we go:
“There was a three-car pileup on an icy road. A small, black car skidded on the ice and was then rear-ended by a red car. That car was then rear-ended by a white van which left long skid marks on the road before coming to a rest. There were no injuries but the left lane was partially blocked for about an hour.”
OK…. how’d you do? Pretty easy to get an image in your mind, right? But was the image you conjured up exactly like the real accident scene? At what angles were your cars positioned? What portion of each car got hit? As you can imagine, conveying the actual events to a jury in court (and having them remember all that in the deliberation room) can mean the difference between a conviction and an acquittal.
Here’s an illustration of the scene created by a graphic designer from a sketch and photos provided by the officer responding to the scene. This illustration leaves very little open to interpretation and is much easier for the jury to remember & discuss.
Courtroom graphics can be a valuable resource in the courtroom. Got the picture?
It’s time to get “rough” with your graphics.
Posted by Rick Sader on September 2, 2009 at 5:28 pmThat’s right, you heard me… yeah, you. It’s time to get rough with your graphics. Large-format graphics applied to rough surfaces, that is.
Some new materials from 3M allow digitally-printed graphics to be applied to cinder block walls, concrete walls, stone work, even brick walls; places ordinary adhesive-backed vinyl would no doubt fail. 3M has developed their rough surface wall wrap materials that are “sticky” enough to adhere to these irregular surfaces and “soft” enough so that when applied, they conform to all the little nooks & crannies. The end result is that the graphics look like they were painted onto these surfaces. The trick is in the installation process. A heat gun and a soft, heat-resistant roller are used to “push” the graphics into the surface features. These materials are being used now in sports stadiums, schools, public buildings, fountains, monuments, restaurants….. anyplace where a rough, hum-drum surface needs some sprucing up.
I recently installed a 6′ x 5′ school mascot logo in the gym of The Toppenish High School, a beautiful new high school in WA state. The vector graphics were printed on 3M’s 8524 media and then laminated with 8624 clear, glossy laminate. These were then contour cut around the perimeter of the logo to give the look we wanted. The following photos show the finished graphic installed on a painted cement wall and the happy school administrators.
