It you point to a building wrap on the Las Vegas Strip, its good possibility that the National Print Group had a hand in it. The wide-format printer now has over 400 employees with manufacturing facilities in Las Vegas, NV and Chattanooga, TN, and sales offices throughout the country working to project their client's message and images in the most compelling and memorable ways possible.

"We've been doing building wraps for 14 years, so we have plenty of experience with this type of product. We are constantly looking at new ways to push the envelope in this area," says Doug Newsom president.

"Outdoor is the one medium which is difficult to avoid and can provide advertisers with a great value for their dollars. With the state of the economy, the cost effectiveness of outdoor advertising has never been more cost effective. It's a very focused medium and you can't beat the great exposure it creates."

National Print Group's wrap expertise was on grand display this fall during the ISME show where they wrapped the Flamingo Las Vegas with a Donny and Marie portrait to promote their shows at the hotel. The 67,500-square-foot building wrap that features their famous smiles is creating a buzz from passersby.

"The Donny and Marie building wrap was a big hit. It's not only quickly becoming one of most photographed sites on the Strip, but I read in the local papers that fans are requesting room assignments that match Donny and Marie's teeth and eyes. Marie's toothy smile is about 8 feet high and five windows wide. And, that if the size of Donny's head was true to life, he would be more than 1,000 feet tall," Newsom laughs.

The Building Wears Parada

These monster signs are also showing up on downtown rehab projects and construction scaffolding. Wallscapes have become one of the most attention getting and innovative forms of outdoor advertising and are often seen as a key feature in a strategically planned construction signage program.

Bob Pietila, president of San Francisco, based-Corporate Identity Systems, a division of St. Paul, MN-based Vomela, says his company is producing more construction work for the retail sector as stores retool or move into new locations. "We do a good amount of retail work and we are seeing more retail companies are looking for us to produce construction barricades on banner materials that can be reused by the contractor on another project. Many of these stores have the same contractor and construction companies. So it makes sense to reuse the wraps," reports Pietila.

One recent project that used this reusable banner wrap was for a Prada store in San Francisco that was being remolded. Pietila's company produced a banner system and stretched it around a building that was being remodeled. The size of Prada wrap was 25x20 feet.

"The project involved a Prada store in San Francisco that we being redesigned. We a produced a reusable scaffolding system and tensioning system around the barricade. The client wanted the images to more high res because it we going to be in a high traffic area so we printed on our VUTEk 3360 ECs with eight pass and we used 3M inks for graffiti resistance. The banner material was Seattle Textile Company 12oz Seatex Gloss and we used an ultrasonic welder to assemble. The sturdy inks really held up to the high traffic and the weather. They were able to use the system for about six months," Pietila recants.

Wraps in the Great White North

DeSIGNS Group of Vancouver, BC, Canada is another company that is seeing new opportunities in the construction signage market. Their primary business area is the real estate market and they specialize in building wraps called 'hoardings' which are essentially giant walls erected around construction sites of new buildings with full color digital graphics and text to promote the upcoming housing opportunities.

"We are mostly working in commercial real estate marketing but are looking at expand out into other areas," says Adam Krahn, graphic designer at DeSIGNS Group. "Despite the economy, the housing market in Vancouver is still pretty sound."

The company recently made headlines in the industry when one of their extremely large hoarding projects for their client Patina was honored with a 2008 MACtac Graphics Worldwide Award.

"The Patina wrap was designed by The Idea Partner and we fabricated their ideas and installed the project. All the printing was done on our two Roland SoliJet digital printers," adds Luis Wiechers, graphic designer at DeSIGNS Group.