October 15, 2021 Reanne Duffy

Signs Express (Farnborough) recently engaged in a little self-promotion and decided on something reflecting its surroundings…

 

Lots of signs and graphics manufacturers occupy industrial units offering access to vehicles and the like through a roller shutter door to the cavernous workshop beyond. To that extent, Signs Express Farnborough has something in common with its competition. Thanks to an ingenious and very attractive bit of self promotion though, that’s where the comparisons end and the difference are ready to take off - and in a practically literal sense.

 

Signs Express (Farnborough) is in a really enviable location if you look at it through the same lens that brings aviation enthusiasts to the town in their thousands. The workshop is right at the end of the runway serving one of the world’s most loved and highest profile airshows. ‘Airshow,’ doesn’t quite make the point. It’s one of the aviation industry’s biggest gatherings anywhere in the world.

 

Wanting its prospective customers to see and experience the creative potential of large format print, Malcolm Trounce and the Signs Express team decided to treat the anonymous expanse of its own roller shutter door to a photo mural reflecting the aviation industry’s legacy and influence on the area. The decision was made to feature an iconic Spitfire in the design which the company’s Bill Billingham created.

 

A Spitfire in repose is a thing possessed of a certain beauty dictated by its very purpose. The laws of physics that keep it aloft and performing, like it must, respect the most strictly enforced laws of all - the laws of gravity. A Spitfire looks like it does because it must. The science says so. Signs Express’s work captures it brilliantly. You can almost hear the Merlin roar.

 

The design cleverly positions the Spitfire to look as though it’s ready to scramble from its own personal hanger. It’s a very convincing effect from any distance and the quality of the print stands the closest scrutiny. The Signs Express team printed its shutter mural on Metamark MD5-H and treated it to a layer of protection in Satin MG703 Laminate. Printed on a Roland solvent machine, the detail is all there - resolution is razor sharp and colour, spot on. MD-CV ClearVision was used to print detail in the window areas and to maintain a view out from within.

 

An application like this is about impact and this one, given its quality and location, doesn’t fail to make it. It speaks realms for the technical and creative abilities of the Signs Express team and does the whole industry a favour by promoting the latent creative potential of the medium of Digital Print.

 

We confidently predict you’ll be selling this application well, Farnborough.