Friday, September 25, 2009

Need a lift?

Zappa's Towing is a good choice if your vehicle needs a lift, Big Idea is a good choice if your business needs a lift.

Pictured here is Tony, the owner of Zappa's Towing. He came to us with a need to lettering up a new member of his towing fleet. With no artwork available for us to start from, but still needing his logo duplicated, we had our designer dig into the creative cap for a big idea. The results were a near perfect reproduction of the company logo and vehicle branding motif. Judging by the look on Tony's face, it appears our client was happy too.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Mesh Banners

Are Wind-holes a thing of the past?

When a banner is displayed so that both sides are moving freely (free hanging), wind-holes have typically been used to help displace the wind load. Without the wind-holes to help relieve the stress at the hanging points, usually brass grommets, a banner can be subject to enormous wind loads, looking like a sail without a ship. When was the last time you noticed a sailboat anchored with it's sail up? Never. This is primarily due to the fact that the sail and/or its support mast would surely be damaged. Same is true with free hanging banners.

The whole concept behind wind-holes is that the added holes will let some of the wind pass through the banner thus relieving the amount of wind load tension the banner is forced to withstand. By relieving this tension the banner is more likely too "weather the storm" and survive to be viewed another day.

Today we still cut wind-holes in banners but only under specific situations. For the most part, our mesh banner material has replaced our standard 18oz. and 20oz. vinyl banner stock for free hanging banner situations. Our Mesh material is just that, a mesh vinyl coated banner stock. We print directly on the Mesh surface using long lasting inks. This Mesh banner material can also be hemmed in a variety of ways to fit just about every custom hanging situation.

Pictured here is an example of a mesh banner we recently produced. Notice how vibrant and legible the text an logo are with our digital printing.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Green Banners

Green, eco, environmentally friendly... these are all common words in today's earth conscience society. For us it is not about being green, blue or aqua, it is about being responsible. In fact our owner tells us how he learned about environmental responsibility as a child back during the global cooling scare of the 70's when being green wasn't the "in thing" to do. " I remember annual collecting of newspapers for our school drive and buying recyclable glass bottled beverages... remember the pop shoppe?"

Here at Big Idea Signs our philosophy is simple. Be smart and respectful, and do what you can to keep from wasting and polluting. With that said check out this banner that was shot hot off the press this afternoon. Go ahead and click on the image and get a close up look, it is cool stuff! It is not our typical banner but is fast becoming the runner up - meet our Eco-fab.

The eco-fab banner material is a wonderful product that is made from 100% recycled plastic drink bottles. It is incredibly lightweight and fabric-like in texture, not stiff like some other banner materials out there. This is a great product for interior and light exterior use. It is waterproof and holds up well to the harsh elements.

Stayed tuned, we will be highlighting our other innovative environmentally friendly products over the next few months.