Big Pieces, Surprisingly Small Printer
On November 11, our class went down to Exhibit Design Consultants in Grand Rapids.
My first thought upon entering the building (minus the fact that I wanted to see the cat everyone was talking about) was that there was a lot going on! The show room was right out front and showed a lot examples in such a small space. They all featured different materials and different examples of what can be done with environmental designs.
Our tour of the day was given by Mike Morris, who seems to have worked with Linda before (past projects and last year’s MindShare if I remember correctly). We slowly walked through a bit of the showroom so he could explain a couple things about “going big.” We then walked a short distance to a small room where I thought he would just explain some more then we’d go into this big print area that we saw before we went into this small room…
But we never did. Maybe I just didn’t get a good enough look at the sign on the door to that other room…
But they can’t print everything in this small room, can they?
There were desks scattered about, a large table, the biggest cutting place I’ve ever seen, some nice photos on the wall of the Beatles (incidently, those photos were taken by Richard Avedon), and three or four printers. You could tell they were printers, but they were….kinda small.
Yes, I know: they don’t need huge, huge machines because they’re not printing out a run of 12,000 catalouges; they’re printing something unique that only gets printed once or twice. However, I guess I wanted to tour a printing floor like we did last year.
I bet we were taken to this room because he brought up SAF often and what was printed on these printers would be about of the size we would use. We didn’t need to print a billboard.
It was cool, though, to see this new technology. One of the printers being used was awesome. It was particularly speedy (much faster than I had pictured and much faster than past machines) and it had some cool gadgets to make sure the pieces were done correctly.
However, it was a very short tour (although, how much more could we have really seen). I learned a lot and have written down notes to have for when we work on the signage for SAF and for the future.
Notes:- Use large graphics and color to capture audience’s attention
- Trade shows are the biggest reason for using a company like this
- Directions on signage should not be at chest height; it gets lost in a crowd
- Check the site before designing
- Remember the color in relation to its space
- What used to take 2.5 hours ten years ago now takes only half an hour
- This company likes PSD and AI the best, but will take ID
- My favorite: Don’t waste your time whining; find a solution.
