"This project featured two main prerequisites: the images had to maintain color quality for the duration of the project, and the end-user needed to be able to overlay new images onto the existing graphics. The customer selected MACtac's IMAGin JT5828 Permanent as the obvious choice due to the product's opaque adhesive and 3-year outdoor durability. It was quite a challenging process, this building wrap was 150 feet long and 20 feet high and was completed in 4 foot by 10 foot sections within five days," Wiechers points out.

"It was full graphic that almost wrapped around the entire building. It was about 750 feet wide by 20 feet high and wrapped around a city block. By utilizing the MACtac media, it gave us the option to change out the panels to create the interest in the project as it was being constructed. We also used a MACtac overlaminate to protect the graphics from graffiti and scratching. The gloss really made the colors pop too," Krahn adds.

The Final Piece of the Puzzle

The installation of these building graphics is the critical and final step of the overall job. Many shops also have installation crews in house, but due to travel costs many will contract out those jobs in other cities. One company that is making a name for itself in the building wrap installation business is Brooklyn, NY-based Real Hit Media Installations. "We opened for business five years ago, mostly doing all kinds of vehicle wraps but then soon branched out into building wraps," says owner Shad Interigi. "So whether it's affixing straight vinyl graphics to vehicles, buildings and floors, and putting up point-of-purchase signage, static signs affixed to posts and banners suspended from buildings, we are doing it all."

Interigi says that it's tough for most companies to keep a staff of in-house installation personnel that can travel throughout the country. "If a graphics house has a national account and has to provide graphics all over the country, it usually has to look outside its own staff to perform the work in a reasonable period. That's where we come in. We are hired guns that get called into do all sorts of installations in usually short amounts of time."

He says that the advances in media technology are making more things possible that were unheard of a few years ago. "With building wraps anything goes these days. The evolution of media materials we are working with has given us the opportunity to change the canvas of the industry. Applying some jobs directly to brick and glass is allowing us to avoid working with cabling systems plus we are able to get wraps up quicker and taken down quicker as well. It also has allowed advertisers to take their creativity of their campaigns to the next level too. It's a very exciting time to be in this business."