Getting high quality scans of artwork over A4 can be expensive and it’s a service that few people offer, in our experience. We’re fed up of searching for suppliers locally, the last one stopped providing the service when their scanner started to play up.
To solve this problem, we’ve just invested in a top of the range A3+ scanner, so we can capture documents up to 437 x 310mm at a true (not interpolated) 2400dpi. This makes us one of the only companies in Twickenham, or even West London who offer A3 scanning at an affordable price.
Drop us a message on e-mail address at the bottom of the page or call on 020 8977 1379 to discuss your oversized scanning requirements.
The summer of 2011 tiptoed past us like Inspector Clouseau, hopelessly skulking through the year in the hope no-one would notice it’s presence.
As it drew to a close and Autumn presented almost no change in the weather, our focus started to turn to the various outdoor ice rinks and winter events which we have a large role in producing graphics for.
This year we worked on three iconic London sites; Hampton Court Palace, Tower of London and Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland which hosts the largest outdoor rink in the country.
To put these events in place, the production company requires a huge amount of labour in a short period of time, a fact that comes down the line to suppliers such as us. For the events this year we took on six freelance installers and finishers to make sure we had a smooth production flow.
At the office Tom was connecting clients, designers and sponsor’s agencies together to make sure we received the artwork we needed at the right time. Gavin was able to manage the install on site permanently, liaising with the clients over the constant evolution of the build. Then our team of trusted finishers and installers made sure everything was mounted, trimmed and installed with care and precision accuracy, powered solely by pain au chocolat the size of your head.
Sponsoring the enormous rink at Hyde Park was Samsung Galaxy, who required branding across all aspects of the skating experience from collecting your skates through to leaving, catching your friends watching you at the same time. Here’s some of their requirements:
Ice rink internal advertising panels: These were produced on shatterproof clear 1mm polycarbonate, with reverse direct to media print on the back and a white flood coat.
Ice rink external graphics: These ran all the way around three sides of the rink and were either direct to media print on foamex, or satin laminated self adhesive vinyl. As a preventative measure to avoid damage to the graphics we also put a kicker panel of aluminium composite along the bottom of the external panels.
Inside the skate tent: We used the aluminium lined, non curling Kapamount 5mm foamboard to create arrow straight hanging panels. Counter fronts and skate rack ends were foamex panels, fixed using 3M VHB tape or screws with colour matched screw caps.
Elsewhere in Hyde Park we were commissioned to produce designs for text to go on wooden signs, to evoke the feeling of a German market. We added textures and effects to the typeface, then produced it on self adhesive vinyl and contour cut to shape. We applied these to varnished wooden boards, which were paired up with handwritten style cut vinyl on blackboards then all installed around various bars, food stalls and hot chocolate stands.
There were tons of additional side projects and specifications we worked on, the list could go on for ever. We ran well over half a kilometre of vinyl through our printer in a matter of days and a similar amount of direct to media print was produced. There were PVC banners, menu boards, cabin graphics, toilet signs, heras panels, ride signs, health and safety signs, warning banners, festival passes, guidebooks, map graphics, crowd control signs, barrier jackets, door graphics, slatwall header signs, finger post vinyl, window frosting, first aid signage… the list is endless!
So I’ll leave you with a gallery showing a small section of work we produced to browse through. And don’t forget to get on down to the Winter Wonderland, Tower of London or Hampton Court to check out our work! (or go ice skating)
We’ve just finished stickering up the supercar of many people’s dreams, the McLaren Mercedes SLR. We took this beautiful example of automotive engineering into our workshop, carefully prepared the paint surface then applied the Mobil 1 branding. The owner was over the moon with the finished product and is sending another five (!!) SLRs over to us for branding!
A few weeks ago we posted about a competition box we produced for Naim Audio. After a successful time at the event they came back looking for their existing box to be rebranded and a second box added. Below are the photos of the re-wrapped boxes covered in self adhesive vinyl prints.
Top end UK based Hi-Fi manufacturer Naim Audio recently got in touch as they’d seen a previous competition box we’d made and needed something of the same ilk. With an upcoming exhibition where they were offering some of their highly desirable kit as a prize, they needed a long lasting, reusable competition box with potential to change the graphics.
We supplied a pre-fabricated foamex box, which we wrapped with laminated self adhesive vinyl. This allowed their branding and message to be displayed prominently, but with the ability to change the graphics at a future date. We think the before and after shots show how much impact the branding has, you’ve got to be in it to win it!
ring ring, ring ring “Hello, Sound…. ah, hi Georges…. sorry it’s a bit echoey, we’re in the Gent’s toilets…”
For many companies this could prove to be a slightly awkward beginning to a conversation, however we’re becoming veterans of hanging around pub toilets. But before you jump to any less-than-salubrious conclusions, I’d like to point out that this hanging around is because we’re becoming more and more involved in bathroom makeovers, rather than any dodgy public WC based activities.
This latest project was at The Churchill Arms, which is one of London’s hidden gem pubs. A busy, popular pub absolutely rammed with memorabilia, plants, photos, souvenirs and overseen by an eccentric Irishman called Gerry who has been landlord of this pub for over 25 years. To ensure you don’t miss this pub, it’s exterior is covered with hundreds of plants and baskets, twice winner of ‘London in Bloom’ competition. It was also the first pub in London to serve Thai food and still comes very highly reccomended.
Anyway, back to the toilets. We were called upon to do some wallcovering using vinyl and to do some more toilet door covers, all with a scratchproof laminate to ensure they’re long lasting and able to be cleaned up after Notting Hill’s finest. The gent’s were treated to a montage of wartime images including the pub’s namesake. The ladies had an extension of a butterfly theme which starts in the bar and continues through the toilets now.
If you’re in the area and fancy a plate of Pad Thai washed down with London Pride, then pop into The Churchill Arms (and check out the toilets while you’re there!):
We were recently called upon by a new client, who had been reccomended to us by another of our existing clients to see if we could help out with some large window graphics at the City of Westminster College’s Paddington Green campus. I dropped in at the campus the following morning for a site survey and found a striking modern building in front of a delightfully quiet green, entirely at odds with the hectic roads that are only a stone’s throw away.
The brief was to install some 4 metre high graphics on the front windows, initially a series of just eight, then at a later date, an additional four on the outside plus some internal ones. We printed the huge vinyls on a grey-backed block out vinyl to prevent interference between images when the internal graphics are completed and then matt laminated to give a soft look which would stand out against the glass expanses surrounding.
We then performed a swift installation to give the finished product as seen below!
This exhibition popup system was designed by The Cutting Edge. The graphics looked amazing on the nearly 4 metre wide popup system and pack down into a portable wheeled case that would fit in the back of most cars. They’re easy to put up too, as long as you’ve got a company like Sound doing the production then you can be sure that the panel joins will be spot on and no wonky edges!
