Лако-красочные материалы — производство

The bigger a building, the more options for eye-catching facade design. If a building is highly visible to thousands of people who drive past it every day, it can be converted into a spectacular billboard for promotions and outdoor advertising.

Some years ago, a mammoth image featuring Edgar Davids, a Dutch soccer player, dominated the skyline of Rotterdam as a mind-boggling graphic converted the highest building in the Netherlands into an impressive, giant advertising pillar (Figure 8.77). At a height of 150 m, the ‘Delftse Port’, headquarters of the Nationale — Nederlanden insurance company, is taller than all other surrounding office build­ings. The huge poster — the biggest building decoration ever produced — was manufactured from a special perforated film that provided an impressive view, without disrupting the view from inside.

To do this, from 4500 self-adhesive pieces weighing a total of 3000kg, Europe’s leading specialists in large-size digital printing had to assemble a giant puzzle. A so — called ‘window marking film’ was bonded to the front and reverse side of the taller of the two office buildings, as well as on the smaller of the two towers. It took 25 days to print the colorful graphic in Reading, UK. To achieve a perfect assembly, a team was sent to Rotterdam to produce accurate drawings of the building. Each piece was numbered and provided with a code corresponding to the windows of the building, allowing each single piece to be placed on the correct window. In the city center of Rotterdam, a team of eight worked for a total of 30 days to install the graphic that when complete, covered an area of 9500 m2 and stood more than 60 times larger than life.

The team worked in pairs, using window-washing platforms to travel up and down the sides of the building. The working conditions were exceptional, with the team working in all weathers, and managing to install the graphic without using conven­tional tools such as knives so as not to harm the glass facade, which may have put the structure of the building at risk. The stunning graphic, which was the size of the Statue of Liberty, caught the eye from a distance of several kilometers and created a furore all over Europe. This exceptional project showed what innovative film technology and modern PSAs could achieve — no job is too large or too colorful, and the resulting graphic simply looked great.

Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble adopted another special method of outdoor advertising when introducing ‘Swiffer’, a new cleaning cloth. Besides conventional media such as television, print and radio, the branded company banked on floor graphics. A special nonslippery self-adhesive film — so-called ‘floorminder’ — was used as a huge eye-catcher on the platforms, stairs and pillars of German urban railway stations. The colorful graphics stood out from conventional advertising and left a lasting mark.

These graphics can also be walked on, as they are suited to virtually all types of flooring and can be removed without leaving any residues when the advertising campaign is over. Special films for outdoor applications can be used not only in trade areas, but also for walk-on advertising areas during target group-specific music and sport events.

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