“Aire”
is a self-standing, portable, single image mural that is composed
of 32 individual banners. Each banner is 16.5’ tall
by 2.5’ wide. Banners are spaced evenly at 3.5’
giving an overall dimension of 16.5’x 108.5’.
Fabric is “DuPont Solar Max” and poles are “Ringmaster”
telescopic fiberglass.
“Aire”
was designed and manufactured to determine the feasibility
of large-scale graphics in a muti- part wind driven format.
The challenge was to determine exactly how well a single image
would convey itself from different angles as the wind shifted
and moved the individual banners. The eventual goal is to
determine sufficient guidelines from a design perspective
to make feasible the application of client’s logos and
images in large format, portable, and wind driven murals.
“Aire”
was completed in January 2004, and was first displayed in
Clearwater,Florida at the Kite Trade Association International.
Since then it has been displayed in Madison, Wisconsin at
the Kites on Ice Festival, and also in Washington, DC at the
38th annual “Smithsonian Kite Festival”, where
it won the award for best ground display.
“Aire”
is entirely appliqué sewn and fully visible from both
sides. All of the fabric used was laser cut on a custom built
“Kern Electronics” laser table. In addition to
the scale of the project, another level of complexity was
added with the use of heavy black outlines on all objects
in the image. While we usually achieve a minimal effect with
just black thread, for this project we wanted to see just
how much a heavy black outline would help the image to read
from greater distances.
“Aire” was
a tremendous success on many levels. The information gathered
has been significant, and has already lead to several orders
from nationally known clients, which was the ultimate goal
all along.
“Aire”
is the first of a four part series titled “The Elementals”.
The finished project will comprise “Earthe, Aire, Fyre,
and Watre, plus smaller transition sets that will fit in between
the mural groups. The completed project is estimated to run
495’ long for a total square footage of 8,167 square
feet. This is roughly 1 1/3 football fields long. |