Minneapolis-based Banner Creations Inc. (BCI) produced 8,000 POP banners for an in-store promotion of Mohawk Carpet Inc.’s Smart Strand carpet, which Mohawk developed from Dupont® fibers made from renewable ingredients. In keeping with Mohawk’s eco-friendly product, BCI obtained Ecophab, a fabric developed entirely from recycled soda bottles and printed with waterbased inks.
After having created the concept with Adobe®’s InDesign®, BCI used a two-step, dye-sublimation process to decorate the 2 x 6-ft. banners. Fabricators first printed the template in reverse on paper and then transferred the ink onto fabric with an Aztec heat-transfer machine. After output, fabricators cut and sewed the material. Then, Banner Creations affixed the banner to frames and made them into kits with Mohawk informational CDs and paper banners.
Nora Norby, BCI’s president, said the project required five months because of the time and manpower required to convert the plastic into fibers that were sent to a mill to be woven into fabric. The project used 300,000 post-consumer bottles.