“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.