Maximum impact

Sound, monitors, high tech: Nothing is impossible today at a trade fair stand, at events and in outdoor advertising. But none of this has supplanted the striking effect of large-format printed images.

Graphical representation, size XXL, is on the increase, both in outdoor advertising and in interior design. This is because large images are not only impressive and brand-forming but are now relatively inexpensive to produce - with increasing professionalism and service. Sachsen Fahnen, Kamenz, for example, has recently started offering a 72-hour delivery service for large digital prints.
The technology is also developing. The company bluepool, Leinfelden-Echterdingen, presented an innovative, invisible tensioning method for its patented exhibition system lately. It can be used to integrate large-format prints on fabric, paper or other materials into the stand structure without unwanted visible fastenings. The fabric can easily be re-tensioned during the trade fair. It is stretched onto a wooden frame and invisibly tensioned within the supporting frame of the exhibition system.
For adidas, the image and brand experts from Reger, Munich, prepared 36 frame systems into which the quality textile prints were inserted as single motifs or multiple-element images measuring 1 x 2 m for use during the Global Retail Marketing Conference. The ability to attach images to both sides of the fabric frames met the client's request for flexibility.
Sport is a topic just crying out for large format - not only on big screens but also in poster advertising. There were some extraordinary examples during the 2006 World Cup. For instance, an oversized Oliver Kahn diving for the ball was suspended more than 8 m above the four-lane motorway into Munich airport. The portrait of the goalkeeper was a full 65 m wide by 18 m high with a volume of 4,130 m{+3} and a weight of 120 t. For this imposing adidas promotion idea, 430 platinum-white Dibond boards, covering almost 1,400 m2, were used. The aluminium composite boards for the display area are produced by Alcan Composites. To apply the image, Funktion + Metall Unlimited, Munich, laminated a directly digitally printed film onto the plates, which were then covered with an additional protective laminate.
With the exception of the entrance area, the entire west façade of Terminal II of Munich Airport was used to advertise the electrical group LG during the World Cup, presented by the German national team and their trainer. Reger, Munich, produced an advertising surface of more than 3,000 m2 for the global player - the central LG logo alone measured 9.8 m, and the 15-m image of the then trainer Jürgen Klinsmann could be seen from far and wide.
Reger used 117 strips of semi-permanent self-adhesive film for this giant project. A 3-GB print file was divided by calculation into 18 x 1.5-m strips. The image specialists printed the image onto the special outdoor material in one go using the direct printing method and then joined the strips together on site to form a complete 173 x 18-m surface.
MAN AG, co-sponsor of the successful CSC team for many years, used this year's Tour de France for a particularly conspicuous advertising measure. They converted 60 MAN lorries into hoardings on wheels using 3M-Scotchlite graphics. For this eye-catching campaign, 3M Commercial Graphics, Neuss, not only supplied suitable film material but also supported and organised the project from the idea through to professional implementation - in co-operation with experienced specialists and partners who handled the approval procedure, printing and adhesion.
Large-format images are not only suitable for the blowoff but can also be used convincingly in interior design to define the character of a room. For the design of the interior of the Atlantic Hotel at the Bremen racecourse, an unusual concept was devised: horse racing elements and motifs were applied to the wooden materials using a digital printing technique, and function as a connecting theme throughout the interior. The guest is received at a grass-green counter combined with a free-standing photo wall showing a racing scene. In the corridors of the hotel, a guidance system with signs shaped like jockeys shirts guides guests to their rooms. The rooms contain large-format pictures that pick up the topic of horse racing and with the other images define the special character of the establishment.
This expressive design was made possible by the individual technique of Thermopal, Leutkirch. Any motif can be pressed in laminate, irrespective of the numbers required. To achieve this, reproducible photos or slides are printed on special paper using digital printing, pressed to form HPL and glued to the substrate material.
Size pulls the public: A gigantic sculpture of Paavo Järvi, hr symphony orchestra's new principal conductor, looked down on Frankfurt's Zeil in October holding his baton high above the city roofscape. The monumental figure of the star conductor protruded above the façade of the Galeria Kaufhof department store to which it was fastened. That was how the Hessische Rundfunk (hr) radio corporation welcomed its famous new employee and introduced him to the Frankfurt public. The advertising agency Schitto Schmodde Waack provided the idea and oversaw the project. A huge aluminium Dibond board for the head and shoulders was fixed way up on the outdoor façade with aluminium scaffolding, 22-m wide base scaffolding stabilised the body and legs of the roughly 30-m-high figure.
As the greatest declaration of love in Germany, a 3,500-m2 picture enclosed the RAG group head offices in Essen: The first, and largest, culture image of the Ruhrgebiet was spectacularly unfurled this spring, when 16 mountaineers abseiled down the roughly 80-m high façade of the Essen-based power and chemical group. The work of art by Otmar Alt was created as part of RAG's campaign "I love the Ruhrgebiet" in support of the application "Essen for the Ruhrgebiet - European Cultural Capital 2010".
Along with 50 partners, ThyssenKrupp exhibited technological innovations during IdeenPark 2006 in May on 30,000 m2 of the EXPO grounds in Hanover. Using a total of 1,735 m2 digitally printed self-adhesive film, the 18 exhibit pavilions that häfelinger + wagner design, Munich, and metron, Eging am See, had erected like a small town constructed of giant building blocks in the German pavilion were converted into communication platforms by Weila Bildtechnik, Munich.
Makom, Kassel, goes one step further. In addition to the familiar large-image communication, the company is increasingly concentrating on communication solutions that combine large-format prints on every possible kind of material with possibilities for three-dimensional representation. For example, the company developed the FoxBox, a "mobile shop window", for 20th Century Fox Germany. With an optimised space utilisation technique and a wide choice of printable materials, it offers an advertising medium that draws attention and gazes despite the multiplicity advertising already in cinemas. The furniture also uses large-format communication elegantly and sustainably.

m+a report Nr.7 / 2006 vom 27.10.2006
m+a report vom 27. Oktober 2006