On August 17, 2014 the second annual Geekie Awards (an award show "by geeks for geeks") will air live from Hollywood, CA. The Geekie Awards are the pet project of veteran film and web industry geek, Kristen Nedopak. Nedopak was frustrated that there seemed to be award shows and ceremonies for everyone but geeks! So, in 2010, she got the ball rolling on an award show that celebrated up and coming geek industry artists and innovators. The award show particularly focuses on independent artists and creators because Nedopak strongly believes that independent artists need recognition and support to take their careers forward. In 2013 the first Geekie Awards ceremonies aired to great success, and some of geekdom's greatest idols appeared including Stan Lee who won a "Lifetime Achievement" award (of course) and Nathan Fillion who won "Geek of the Year" (also of course). 

This year's award categories include: Art & Craft, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cosplay, Fashion & Armor, Personality, Podcasts & Vlogs, Short Films, Tabletop Games, Trailers & Videos, Video Games (Indie), and Web Series and Websites. In addition to these categories where anyone may enter, three industry awards—Lifetime Achievement, Geek of the Year, and Geek Cred—are given to groups or individuals who have been an inspiration to other geeks throughout the years. The 2014 Geek of the Year winner is the former Star Trek: The Next Generation cast member and host of Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton. The first place winners receive a blue raygun trophy hearkening back to the weapon of choice in scads of sci-fi films, comic books, and literature.

Wrapped and ready to rock n' roll

The main sponsor for this year's Geekie Awards is Gibson Guitars. They are providing a guitars that will be signed by celebrities at the ceremony and then auctioned off to raise money for the Jim Henson Foundation. The custom design on the guitars was created by Dane Storrusten of Soulcake Creative, who is another very talented sponsor of the Geekie Awards. Gibson got the design files from Storrusten and sent them to us to be wrapped on unfinished guitars that they sent us. The cool thing about wrapping these guitars as compared to guitar wraps we've done in the past, is that these wraps feel like an integral part of the instrument as opposed to a sticker that's been wrapped over the guitar.

They sent us guitars that were nothing more than the bare wood body because they wanted the clearcoat and hardware of the guitar to go over our wrap. This means that to anyone holding it, the texture is going to feel exactly like any other guitar they've handled. 

Close up view of the Geekie Awards logo design

We created a template for the guitars as we laid out the files to go on them because we needed to make precise measurements of where the graphics were going to go. We didn't want things spilling over the sides or being hidden by the guitar's hardware. We then printed out the design on Avery 1005 vinyl wrap material because that particular vinyl is great for conforming on geometric surfaces. If you think about it, there are virtually no flat surfaces on an electric guitar, so it made a huge difference using a material that's flexible enough to lay smoothly on a curve. After printing it we laminated the material using Avery 1060 Laminate to help protect the integrity of the wrap. The designs were finally fed through our die-cut machine that cut out perfect guitar-shaped pieces for us to apply to the instruments. 

That's one good lookin' guitar, if we do say so ourselves.

We're really excited that we got to work on this project and we hope that the guitars are a smash at this year's Geekie Awards! If you're interested in finding out more about the live ceremony airing this August 17, check out their website: www.thegeekieawards.com

Interested in your own instrument wrap project? Give a call at 615-595-6564 or click the button below to get a free quote and consultation about your vinyl wrap project!