Pyramid Visuals
The PyramidVisuals / Greenpeace banner featuring 380 Meter Squared 3D artwork by Kurt Wenner has made it’s way to Budapest, Hungary and was put on display in front of Parliament on Kossuth Square.
The initiative was started by Greenpeace and Avaaz as a petition against GM crops and was supported by the signatures of a million Europeans which were then printed on the edge of the canvas.
Here are some photos of the banner in Budapest.
Brussels 9th December 2010– The EU Lisbon Treaty is being tested for the first time since its entry into force last year, said Avaaz and Greenpeace. The civil society organisations delivered an unprecedented citizens’ initiative signed by 1 million Europeans calling on the European Commission to ban GM crops until safety testing is made independent and scientific. The handover of the first-ever citizens’ initiative petition was marked by a world record-breaking digitally printed 3D art manufactured by large format printer Pyramid Visuals.
In early October, Weybridge based company Pyramid Visuals were contacted by Greenpeace International, to assist with the production and printing of an environmentally friendly, large format banner to help them promote the above cause when they unveiled it on the doorstep of the European Commission headquarters in Brussels to demonstrate the EU-wide objection towards genetically modified crops.
Having taken the brief from Greenpeace and discussed with them the logistics of printing, production and delivery, it was clear that this was going to be no ordinary task.
The artwork for the banner was being created in the US by American artist, Kurt Wenner, a world renowned street painter famous for his realistic 3D anamorphic street paintings. Kurt drew the image in the US, replicating his infamous street art, by drawing it in sections before scanning and compositing the artwork prior to emailing it, also in sections (11GB) to Pyramid Visuals in the UK. Once downloaded, our own in-house designers reformatted the images into printable sections and added the million legible signatures around the outside of the banner with perfect replication of the original artwork to create the world’s largest piece of anamorphic art.
From the outset, Greenpeace had specifically requested that the banner be printed on an eco-friendly material which Pyramid Visuals was duly charged with sourcing. Although the number of requests from clients wanting to use ‘greener’ materials is increasing and the printing industry is beginning to manufacture a wider selection of eco-friendly products, the actual substrate chosen for this job was a specific environmentally friendly, non-PVC fabric material.
For the printing of the banner – which required an overall finished dimension of 22m x 22m – and to ensure quality replication of the artwork (including the one million legible protest signatures around the perimeter), the decision was taken to digitally print it in sections on Pyramid Visuals’ in-house Scitex HP XL1200 machine. Once all sections had been printed, they then had to be welded together matching up each piece in accordance with the artwork to form a fully joined, large scale, circular fabric banner.
Once completed, the banner was carefully packed and personally driven from our office in Weybridge, Surrey to the European Commission in Brussels for arrival on the 9th of December 2010 by a Director from Pyramid Visuals who was on hand to assist Greenpeace with any issues relating to its unloading and prominent unveiling.
Pyramid Visuals are very proud to have been able to support Greenpeace in this record breaking high profile event as having recently been awarded an ISO14001 accreditation, we are a company that actively promotes and supports environmental matters.
Imagine a circular banner that measures 22m x 22m and contains a 3D Anamorphic piece of art by a world renknowned artist and has 1 million signatures alongs its edge, neatly printed on environmentally friendly fabric.
That’s what we at Pyramid Visuals had to deliver for a Greenpeace petition against genetically modified crops.
After getting the brief from Greenpeace we had to approach this project in sections due to the vast undertaking that it was;
Artwork had to be obtained, a suitable, printable substrate had to be sourced, a bonding mechanism need to be investigated and other background tasks had to be done before embarking on this project.
The artwork for this mammoth task was done in the United states by Kurt Wenner, the famous 3D sidewalk artist.
The 11Gb print files were uploaded to us via the internet and our inhouse design team reformatted the images into working pieces that we could use on our printing machines.
The 1 milllion signatures were then added to the edge of the banner and the entire lot was then printed onto sections of environmentally friendly printing substrates on our Scitex HP XL1200 machine. The sections were then bonded together to create one massive, record breaking banner.
The completed banner was then driven up to Brussels for delivery.
You read read more about this multi pledged initiative on Greenpeace’s website at the following link:
Greenpeace.org
Pyramid, well known for exceptional quality building wraps, exhibition stands, direct to media and large format digital printing, moved into the digital print market 5 years ago and is growing year on year: this year moving forward into the short run, point of sale market. As a result of this reputation, The Gadget Show trusted the Pyramid team to produce super scaled photo image prints of 17 metres high x 10 metres wide.
The Gadget Show presenters, Suzi and Jon were photographed in a studio using both cameras. The film negatives and memory chip were then handed to Pyramid Visuals to produce the super scaled banner poster prints. The Pyramid graphics team transformed the film image into an electronic format using a drum scanner, to demonstrate the full capability of the traditional camera and get the best printing results possible.
The images from the two cameras were sent from the Apple Mac to the Rip Station where they were then scaled to their final 17 metre x 10 metre size and split into four separate files for each of the four colour processes: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK). Once ripped the images were ready to print on the massive HP Scitex XL 5 metre super-wide digital print machine: built on the accomplishments of the market-leading Scitex XL Jet, which has become synonymous with quality and productivity. This digital printer delivers an impressive output of 85 square metres of digital print per hour, which ensures its position as the leading super-wide format printer in the market.
Pyramid selected fire retardant mesh material for this project, which is specially designed for large scale banners, building wraps and scaffolding covers. This type of printing has an 18 month warranty to resist against colour fading as a result of UV exposure, cracking, shrinking and tearing under normal conditions.
Using the market leading printers, it took just 5 hours to print the 340 square metre mesh posters. The rolls of print were then handed to the Pyramid Visuals specialist finishing team to weld the two parts of the posters together and re-enforce the edges with special webbing so that the large eyelets would carry the weight of 62kg super-size banner posters. The finishing was done on a 14 metre hot air Millerweld Master, one of the country’s largest and fastest PVC welders.
Pyramid Visuals offer the complete package from conceptual design, printing, producing and finishing to the final installation of the product. Once completed the qualified installation rigging team took the banners to Millennium Point in Birmingham where they installed the large poster prints using a cherry picker.
suzi-perry
On both occassions, the duo posed for a professional photographer who took photos with 2 similar cameras using similar lenses, one being film and the other being digital.
The photographs were then shipped off to our premises where we had them blown up to a massive size, printed on one of our super wide digital printers, welded together using one of our hot air welders and then hung up for display at the milleneum building in Birgingham.
You can read both fascinating accounts on our website.