Design

Meet the Mets

Nashville’s 1220 Exhibits executes an amazin’ exhibit at the New York Mets’ Citi Field.

Published

13 years ago

May 23, 2011

Steve Aust Signs of the Times June 2011 Issue

The New York Mets, who are playing their 50th season as a Major League Baseball team, are celebrating their legacy with 7,844 sq. ft. of exhibit space inside Citi Field, their home stadium in Queens, NY. Brian Mirakian, an architect for Populous, the Kansas City-based firm that handled the stadium’s design/build, approached Nashville, TN-based 1220 Exhibits about fabricating the exhibit and graphic packages.

Working for the Queens Ball Park Co., 1220’s staff teamed with Steve Griffin, an editor and writer, to develop a story in conjunction with Populous, which also designed the graphics. Because of the project’s compact turnaround time – it kicked off during the Christmas holiday season, with a strict Opening Day deadline – 1220 enlisted several contractors to assist. Mega Media Concepts (Sparta, NJ), Vomela (Minneapolis) and AAA Flag & Banner (Los Angeles) produced different digital-graphic aspects, and Endless Edge Graphics (Nashville), Falcon Fabricators (Nashville) and Signs + Decal Corp. (NYC) fabricated various 3-D exhibit components.

Anna Cage, 1220’s marketing director, said Mets officials considered recycled-material usage. She said all soft-sided graphics incorporated recycled materials, as did all aluminum components and MDF parts used for signage and casework. Similar thinking led to specifying LEDs to light the exhibit.

The shop fabricated wall-mural and suspended-ring graphics using 3M Scotchprint material, which was printed using a 3M Scotchprint 2000 electrostatic printer. For the central pennant pylon, Endless Edge printed it on brushed-aluminum Formica® laminate mounted to Dibond using an Agfa Anapurna MV UV-ink, flatbed printer material. 1220 Exhibits produced the digital graphics for all casework on an Océ LightJet 500XL photo-laser printer using FujiFlex photographic media, and mounted them to various substrates on a GBC Orca III laminator.

1220’s AVI department developed the electronic-display program using custom-built, kiosk computers; ELO touchscreen monitors; BrightSign video repeaters and interactive content, which Silver Oaks developed.

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