Large-format communication
Images appeal to the emotions and are not easily forgotten. Megaformats, coupled with a creative concept and new technology, have certainly succeeded in this respect.
Day in, day out, we are all buried under a mass of information. Newspapers, magazines, brochures, posters, television, Internet and trade fairs, too - they all send messages that we are supposed to receive and store in our memories. But how much really gets through to customers, consumers, trade fair visitors? What medium has the best chance of triggering an effect?
Pictures have a clear advantage here, because they communicate directly. They have an emotional impact which is direct and needs no translation. That makes it all the more important that the language of images should fit the company and express something unmistakable. If that succeeds, they will convey personality - and have a lasting effect, because images stick in the mind more easily than words.
Large-format pictures are especially good at drawing attention because they present themes in unfamiliar dimensions and function as eye-catchers. Creative ideas that link those themes to the products on display or that break out of the two dimensionality of the poster, for example, printed sculptures, are even better at bringing images to life in the minds of observers.
One conspicuous example of this was the complete enclosure of the Bayer head office building by Makom, Kassel, with megaprints to form a packet of aspirin that was true to the original in every detail except its dimensions: 120 x 65 x 19 m. The gigantic project was dreamt up and implemented in just four months in 1999. The event was made possible because Makom had the necessary production capabilities and involved their network partners. Makom provided the planning, printing, assembly and installation from a single source. The megaproject earned three entries in the Guinness Book of Records: "biggest pillbox in the world", "longest zip in the world" and "largest air display in the world".
Another way of experiencing size are panorama displays. "A panorama extends horizontally, gives the impression of three-dimensionality, and makes for a feeling of physical space", says Yadegar Asisi, the artist and architect who revived the tradition of panoramas ten years ago with the visionary panorama exhibition "Berlin 2005". As recently as the 19th century, large numbers of artists were needed to paint the huge surfaces by hand. Today, it is all much easier and can be done in a matter of days with digital airbrush technology. The spatial experience provided by panoramas has not lost anything of its attraction over time. Over the past few years Asisi, in cooperation with Big Image Systems, Stahnsdorf, has implemented several projects of this kind.
The latest result of their work can be seen on the Olympic site in Berlin. As part of an exhibition on the history of the Berlin Olympic Stadium, a 560-m2 panorama shows the newly reconstructed sports venue. Big Image not only provided the picture ready to hang but also the mounting technology. The design options have expanded considerably in recent years due to digital printing. Countless formats are now available and there are hardly any restrictions on the choice of material used for printing on - paper, textiles, foil, glass, et cetera. All this makes for professional visual communication that defines the cityscape.
Probably the largest adhesive film graphic in Germany was implemented by 3M, Neuss, with a campaign for Vodafone. As the main sponsor of the 13th Düsseldorf Jazz Rally in June, the mobile phone company put a 1,200-m2 campaign motif on both façades of the Vodafone high-rise office building on the banks of the Rhine. Two different types of film were used: the perforated Scotchcal Window Graphics 8173 film for the glass façade area and the removable IJ40 film for the façade cladding made of painted aluminium. Over 700 image components for each façade were printed, formatted and glued within a week. The entire production - print preparation, printing, assembly and gluing - was handled by the Düsseldorf company s+p, which had already turned the high-rise office building of the legal insurance company ARAG in Düsseldorf into an attraction this May with a 1,000-m2 3M Scotchprint graphic for the ARAG World Team Cup.
Back-lighting and other lighting effects can also add a dynamic element and create even more appeal than a plain picture. It may even change the image to the point of creating something fresh and new. Procedes beilken digital printing Werbegesellschaft mbH, Lemwerder, for example, created a structure made of round aluminium tubing based on the dome of Dresden's Church of Our Lady for Werbehaus Dresden which was exhibited on the "Saxony" stand at ITB Berlin 2005. The semitransparent material Poly CS, printed with images of the church, conveyed the typical character of the monumentin a modern, colourful collage on the trade fair stand, ensuring a successful mixture of youthful freshness and tradition to express Dresden's flair.
Emotionally, images work especially well if they have a connection to real life, that is if they show living creatures and their environment, nature, or habitat. This effect was used by Raumtechnik, Ostfildern, for Duravit at ISH 2005 in Frankfurt based on a design by Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten, Munich. Textile Wall structures with large-format photographs printed on them were hung on the 6.60 m high and 4.50 m wide building structures of the walk-in "houses" on the stand at which Duravit was exhibiting new products. The images showed a woman dressed in fresh natural white, obviously in harmony with the scenery surrounding her on a pier right next to the sea with juicy green reeds and beautifully shaped pebbles. The images gave the exhibited products a value beyond their purely sanitary use and promised wellness, relaxation, freshness, naturalness. To showcase the Siemens conglomerate, the permanent exhibition "Milestones" in the SiemensForum in Munich, designed by the Stuttgart communications agency Milla und Partner, connects the past and future of the company through the present in the guise of a gigantic carpet of images, called the "Siemens Panorama". Current projects from all over the world are being shown on an approximately 24 x 6 m lit wall extending over two storeys. The production technology of Munich company Weila Bildtechnik also proved effective, as exemplified by the "Gallery of Employees" on the ground floor - a 20 m long STARprint photo print with the "faces" of the company over the past 150 years. The back-lit "Siemens Panorama" with its 160-m2 surface KINGsize Print, pulled tight over an aluminium frame with LUMI tensioning sections is also impressive. The large-format images in this exhibition are intended to arouse a feeling for history and the present, for the historical and technical dimensions of the global company and for the people behind it. A vivid presentation that gets the spirit of the company across to visitors directly by means of images.
Another approach is taken by those using large-format images to present exhibited products in a different environment. In this case, the images conjure up an atmosphere, show the customers creative ways of using the product, and create demand for the products. For example, the Vogelsänger Studios, Pottenhausen, created three sophisticated ambience photos for the largest furniture store of the XXXLutz group, based in Nuremberg. In the showroom, 3 x 5 m banners are used as an attention-grabber with examples of furnishing to underline the sales topic "loft" - modern and trendy living. At the same time, the large-format photos discreetly guide the visitor's attention towards the original furniture set up in a similar configuration directly below the picture. Style elements such as brick walls or steel structures that enhance the loft character ensure the products are easily recognisable both on the pictures and in the exhibition itself. Even though the photos look as if they were taken at original locations, with their generous feeling of space and meticulous reproduction of detail, they were in fact produced entirely in the studio. For each photo motif "Europe's largest interior photo studio" designed its own exclusive environment in the style of New York loft apartments. "Despite the very detailed sample rooms, the photo gives customers new impetus and ideas for their own interior by changing the arrangement of the furniture", was how Harald Oelze, account manager for XXXLutz at Vogelsänger, commented on one of the ways of using gigantic photos. The customer is shown not just the "plain" product but different living environments. This carries a stronger emotional charge. And demonstrates that large-format images have a big future in the advertising world. Because there are no sales without eliciting the right emotional response from the customer.
m+a report Nr.8 / 2005 vom 08.12.2005
m+a report vom 8. Dezember 2005