One of the projects we've worked on recently that we really love is the the wall mural for the LIDS retail store inside of the A-Game Sportsplex in Franklin, TN—the place Rich calls the "sports mecca of Franklin." It's a huge facility that has an ice rink, weight rooms, volleyball and basketball courts, outdoor fields for football, lacrosse, or soccer...basically anything an athlete could want.
Isn't it cool?!
We were given the image files from the design team at LIDS and after a site survey and measuring we were ready to begin testing which vinyls would work best. Because it's a painted cement wall, we knew we would have to be careful about which kind of vinyl we used on such a textured and uneven material. The mural needed to look seamless and smooth while being applied to a bumpy, pocked surface. We spent about a week testing different types of vinyl and seeing how it stuck to painted cement: which ones peeled, which ones wouldn't stick, which ones created too many air bubbles—anything and everything was tested! In the end the best material, and the one we ended up using, was the Avery MPI 1005 film with Easy Apply RS.
At the site, the walls were prepped by being wiped down with 70% isopropyl alcohol to remove any residues or oils that would prevent the vinyl from sticking. Mike and Harry worked from top down and left to right, slowly sticking the vinyl to the wall and removing any trapped air. Because there was only a 1" overlap between the panels, lining each piece of vinyl correctly the first time was extremely important! The panels were placed in increments of inches. After the panels were in place, they went over ever inch with a heat gun and high density rollers to really fix it to the wall.
It looks almost black and white but is actually really desaturated color photo prints.
We also wrapped some of the square columns and doors in the room. The columns were actually pretty simply and went up seamlessly, but the doors took a lot of finesse! Mike and Harry had to install the wrap around the doors' hardware (they didn't have the ability to remove any of the hardware) so they had to be very exact in where they trimmed and placed the vinyl. It was also hard because people kept coming in and out of the doors!
Here's Harry installing part of the mural
We're really pleased with how it turned out and even happier that the client liked it! Wall wraps are some of our favorite things to do and look forward to putting up more in the future.
Interested in getting a wall wrap installed at your place of business? Call the experts at 12-Point SignWorks and receive a free quote today!
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