Bumperactive had a problem. From the sidewalk in front of the Burnet store, you could not see the large blue marquee banner that advertised the business. If you were casually walking by from another business on the strip, you may be intrigued by what the business was, but there was nothing to inform you without coming in.
To solve this, I designed a white vinyl graphic to advertise a little of what the business did inside. There were a couple constraints to factor in. A trashcan partially blocked the window and I wanted to keep the design bold but sparse enough to avoid obscuring the view for people wanting to look inside.
In the window you can see we had DTG machines and heat presses. These were purposefully located up front so visitors could see the action of a shirt being digitally printed in action without disturbing the employees carrying out production. It is a fascinating process to see a blank shirt be fed into what looks like a standard printer and see it create an image line by line. Without any signage though, it would be hard to make sense of what you were seeing. To make a design for a space that large, I first took some measurements.
Normally, the measurements would be sufficient to make a design but I would also need to work around the trash can that obscures the window. Even if I factored that in, I prefer to design with a photo reference. I took the best picture I could from the sidewalk and then removed the geometric distortion to create an accurate base to work from.
From there, I sketched up some of the products that Bumperactive printed on: shirts, hats, stickers, totes, etc. The focus of course would be shirt printing, as that was what could be seen through the window and we wanted to draw curious passersby to see. To capture the magic of seeing a shirt printed so fast, I used a lightning bolt to symbolize the speed and impact of creation. The clouds also provide a sense of movement to carry the eye to the other offerings provided inside.
To work more efficiently, I darkened the image to give more contrast to the white design I was drawing. White vinyl offers the best contrast as glass generally reads as a mid-tone to black value. Any color was likely to get washed out when exposed to sunlight.
Once I was satisfied, I made production files. Our sticker printer printed these huge vinyl shapes, cut them into segments to ease transportation, and applied them to the window. She did an excellent job puzzle-piecing the image back together. Here is the final look:
The final piece not only added some much needed decoration to a plain window but also gave visitors context to the wizards printing inside. The design was a success and there was a noticeable increase in foot traffic directed inside to ask questions and put in orders.
Comments