UV printed colour to clear film

A great demonstration of colour on film…

A great example of the vibrancy that UV print can create is this work to an optically clear PET 50 micron film applied to glass balustrades. Our recent installation was to glass segregation screens in a food hall. The building was a renovation of a church building and to keep the them the architect wanted to keep the stained glass feature.

Jon in our graphics design studio re-created the artwork from the old glass patterns that were removed. Tis artwork was then reverese printed to the clear film. The design had to be seen from up to 40 metres away so colour vibrancy was vital but the product still needed to allow light through.

Triple pass…

This vibrancy was achieved by laying down the first layer as a colour, then white for opacity and then a third pass with the colour pattern. Tis allowed for the pattern to be seen in full colour from both sides of the glass.

cut etched film for modesty panels

Part of the sam works was to allow privacy to an upper balcony level where glass balustrades were installed. Colour was not a requirement but modesty panelling was achieved by using an etched effect film and cutting to the same stained glass pattern used below, but with just vectored shapes.

Again the artwork was carried out in house allowing for a smooth transition with production and eventual installation.

We’ve joined the world of UV printing….

This week sees the installation and commissioning of our brand new OCE Arizona 360 flat bed UV printer. The addition of this machine to the department allows us to expand on the variety of products that we can curently supply.

The Arizona is a true flat bed printer allowing for precision printing to rigid board media. This includes Foamex and Di-Bond boards, Perspex, MDF sheet and even glass. In essence just about anything can be directly printed onto, which is under 45mm in thickness. The inks are UV cured, by powerful UV lamps, which means they can be laid down on to the top surface of the substrate and then dried immediately, building up a layered structure.

The flat bed utilises a vaccum to fix the rigid media in position, allowing for very accurate positioning of the printer head. This process, along with OCE’s variable dot printing process allows for tremendously precise and detailed work to be completed. The machines footprint is a big one, so big we had to take the walls down to get the machine in place!

The printing process can also be carried out onto roll media, such as Bonwyke’s own proLAM digital wall covering, optically clear and coloured films. The advantage this has over normal solvent/Eco solvent printing is that the colours have much more vibrancy and films can be installed immediately after production, instead of having to allow them to cure before application. This is a distinct advantage in a world where installation turn around times have become so much shorter. Another great advantage to the machine is its ability to print to wide format vinyl, allowing a full print to be 1850mm in width. A great advantage to have in reducing the effects of joins in the finished product.

Machine installation has gone well (massive thank you to Roger and Simon at OCE for their great work) and will be completed this week. Our production will be up to full speed from next week and the machine is already booked with work, to earn its keep! We’ve developed a sample pack, to show off the machine’s capabilities, so contact us through the normal channels and get involved in the world of UV.

B2 inner core walls completed

Inner Core Walls…

Once again our guys continue to defy the laws of gravity and manage to hang our own digitally printed proLAM wallcovering onto the inner atrium walls of B2.

Not ones for being feint hearted Johnnie and Will, both PASMA trained to erect scaffolds, managed to construct a safe form of access platform to execute this installation. Not easy when you are 20 metres from the floor and only have a narrow balcony to use as your starting point!

Bonwyke’s proLAM has been digitally printed here with both an image and solid colour running the full height of the building. The wall covering has also been over-laminated with a satin protective layer to help with longevity, in a high pedestrian traffic area. With such long runs of material this form of printing and laminating requires great production skill, from the team back at HQ.

Also completed in this section is the application of the tinted transparent PET film facing the central atrium. Manufactured at 1520mm width this film allowed us to install these 3.2 metre high by 1400mm wide in one piece, negating the need for unsigthly joins. This film has really given the office space behind the glass a vivid and dynamic look.

The completion of B2 marks the halfway point of the project for Bonwyke and soon we start the process of starting and completing B3 and B4 at the same time! This is where the team work really counts, to ensure not only that the graphics are manufactured with the same quality but installed in a scheduled way to reduce disruption.

Having a great place…

One of our more fulfilling installations has been this one for the Teenage Cancer Trust’s new offices in the MacMillan Centre, West London. The works involved printing and applying digital wallpapers to various communal and recreationla rooms as well as printed graphic films to the glazed partitions.

We worked closely with architects Allford, Hall, Monaghan & Morris on the designs and layout for the rooms. The challenge, as always, was with the time allowed for the project but with great help from our install teams, putting in the extra hours, all was finished on time.

Having trust…

This is a great organisation to be invloved with at this level. Cancer has touched many of us, both directly and indirectly, but it is especially poigniant when young people are affected.

“We know young people have a much better chance of survival if they are treated together, by teenage cancers experts, in an environment designed just for them”

The Trust  is there to help such young individuals and cleverley uses these same individuals, who’ve experienced all of the roller coaster of emotions, to then go out and talk with and help others in the same situation. It also helps treat teenagers in an environment which they are familiar with, helping to put them at ease throught he treatment process.

Hope we’ve helped in some small way!

The story continues……

Continuing on from our successful start to the project, much of the glass partitioning is now in on the first, second and third floors. This has allowed us to completed these areas with the reverse printed manifestations, giving each room its identifictation and privacy. These graphics also allow for the partioning to be in compliance with current DDA regulations.

Bonwyke have printed the designs to Metamark’s digital Opal Frost film. This application allows for the colours to stay vibrant but also affording the maximum amount of light to enter the room. This aspect is very important on a building with such a large floor area, where some of the rooms are situated away from the external glazed elevations.

The ground floor partitions are being installed next week, so it will be all hands to the pump to ensure we meet with the scheduled completion date of 10th Feb. Also next week we complete the inner core walls which are now fully decorated.

This part of the work is the toughest for our installation teams, as it involves accessing the very top of the atrium at 21 metres above the finished floor. Bonwyke’s own proLAM wall vinyls are to used on this section, so look out for more pictures and details on the next update.

Solid Sign Letters

A new and exciting project for us to be involved in is one for The Body Shop. Recently Awesome Architectural Glazing Solutions Ltd asked us to apply a background colour to the new shopfront style glass panels to be used in a trial sample shop.

Our process involved reverse printing the specific RAL colour coding for the green, on to a clear film and then applying this to the rear of the glass. As the specification was for the green to be seen in 100% opaque from both the front and rear elevations, we then re-printed the green to a Metamark MD5 digital vinyl and applied this over the top of the original layer.

Fret Cut Lettering

Part of the spec involved the fret cutting of the Body Shop’s text logo and applying to the external face of the glass. We picked up on this part of the specification and offered to carry out the application at the sametime as the filming works. Awesome were more than happy to have us carry-out this part of the work, saving them more time and also less transportation of the glass to different suppliers. This helps not only cut down on the risk of glass breakage but also helps the environment with reduced fuel emissions, a topic that was so dear to the Body Shop’s late creater, Anita Roddick.

The letters are made up of layering a clear 10mm Acrylic with a 19mm white Foamex and then fret cutting for the letter shape; all handled by the computer of course! The letters are then bonded to the glass with a clear liquid epoxy adhesive, to give a weatherable, long lasting bond to the glass.

We wish everyone involved on the new layout project great success with their ideas for 2012.

It’s all about imagination….

What a lovely job to work on! Bonwyke were asked to complete the visualisation of a brand new flight training centre at Sandwell College, near Birmingham; an £80 million new build project.  Working closely with Interserve Projects, who manufactured the simulator, Bonwyke’s brief was to transform the walls and surfaces of the room into something more akin with the flight environment.

Design

The design was intended to give the training room a feeling of an operational airport space. The training given here is based around the commercial flight industry and is the most forward thinking in the industry.

Wall Vinyl

Bonwyke printed the designs to their own proLAM wall vinyl covering. This allows for the full and vibrant colour to be seen in very fine detail but also give tremendous durability to the finished product. Our installing team had the whole job buttoned up within a day, allowing us to be finished ahead of schedule.

Again well done to all the team for completing this one so spectacularly and for showing how these vinyls and images can fire the imagination!

Education, education, education…

It’s amazing how quickly things come around and it doesn’t seem 6 weeks, let alone the 6 months, that we first visited Ryton Park Primary School near Worksop. The school was a brand new build by Interserve Projects and back in August 2011 we were commissioned by the school to complete the primary graphic content of an on-going artistic plan.

The school’s Head teacher, Richard Lilley, was very keen to give the school a definite identity of its own, right from the very start. This included the whole concept of how the school was seen by others. Bonwyke entered into a partnership with Design Image to achieve Richard’s expectations.

Phase 1

Phase 1 involved creating the theme that would carry through the whole project and then implementing the signage and manifestations to meet with Building Regulations and H&S requirements, to get the school opened. This involved door signage, entrance signs, glazing manifestations and directional signage.

Phase 2

Phase 2 is the interesting one for us and the guys at Design Image. These works are for more decorative purposes and allows the school to reinforce its mantra throughout the building. We are being commissioned to install wall and glazing graphics into the heart of the school using inspirational phrases and themes for the children to pick up on.

This has been one of our most enjoyable projects over the past few years. It has been a privilege to work with such a forward thinking education administrator, such as Richard, and has given us a real insight as to how visual images can change the minds and views of everyone.

Project Details

The graphics package involves printed designs being applied to glass partitioning and wall mounted vinyls to the inner core walls and pedestrian areas over four office blocks and a central atrium area, but that is in the near future.

The project was awarded by BAM construction and we’ve been working closely with the architects at GMW and the visual design creators at Clinic in the first set up phase. Production of the graphics started just before Christmas and installation started in earnest last week. The total site duration for the graphic’s project is three and half months, so we will know Milton Keynes well by April!

Well done to the Installation department for getting us through the highly demanding and exacting H&S pre-requisites of BAM construction. A great deal of preliminary work has been achieved prior to our install date with site meetings, courses undertaken, Risk Assessments, etc,. This background work is all about the detail needed to deliver the end product on time on target without costly delays.

Installation Begins

Last week saw our primary installing team complete the coloured transparent film application to B1 Atrium elevation. Each of the four buildings has a colour theme, developed by the architects and we were asked to source a fully transparent coloured film with a range of more than 12 colour variations. The hard part was to find the film on 1520mm width, to ensure no joins were used in the application on to 1400mm x 3200mm panes. We found the film but had to go the France to source it.

Also completed in the same week was the application of a printed vinyl, printed to an exact Pantone reference from Network Rail’s standard palette range, to 32no riser doors over three floors. This film has been laminated by us with a tough matt protecting laminate, to ensure longevity of colour and product.

The guys have also kept up the schedule pace by installing the cut dot matrix privacy design to the ground floor perimeter office glazing on the North and South elevations. This means that we are slightly ahead of schedule for B1 and may even allow us time to install film to the other buildings, to aid us later in the project.  Another week at this level and then we looked to put in the secondary teams to complete the internal glazing print graphics.

Great start so far by everyone in the design, production and installation teams and the plan is working! Watch this space for more site images of the printed graphics, as the buildings come on stream over the next three months.

There’s only one Markus Liebherr…

 With the Southampton Football team riding so high in the Championship at the moment this job was an exciting one to be involved with. The brief came from local workspace fit-out company, Solent Interior Systems.

Whilst carrying out the re-modelling of the corporate suites, in honour of the late owner/chairman Markus Liebherr, the Swiss industrialist, the idea of a wall mural in his memory should be installed. The challenge was how to keep the colour and theme similar to that of the existing design scheme and also honour the man in the right way.

Design Process

A short on site meeting with the new club chairman and the daughter of Herr Liebherr was enough for Jon to formulate some ideas. The terraces thought so highly of Markus that they had a altered the words to the song ’walking in a winter wonderland’ to ‘walking in a Markus wonderland’. Jon used the musical notes of the song as a ‘thread’ to give the background theme. This also made it possible for the design to encompass the two large plasma screens that were inset to the wall. He then used a much loved pen and ink portrait picture of Markus, donated by the family, as the main theme.

Bonwyke’s proLAM wall vinyl was picked as the material of choice, to allow for the background wall colour to be printed to the exact contrast coding of the paint that existed on the other walls, as requested by the overall designer. The durable matt lamination gives the film a non-reflective satin look which is highly durable, in a very busy corporate environment.

The Saints go marching on!