Exhibitionist Tendencies: Crush Creative

Crush Creative (Burbank, CA) func¬tions as a full-service, digital- and environmental-graphics provider whose work includes vehicle graphics, retail-storefront visuals, and electronic digital signage, among other solutions. Its portfolio includes several ST contest winners (see ST, December 2008, page 92).

Seruto and Co., a Pasadena, CA-based, exhibit-management firm, hired Crush Creative to print graphics for “Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America,” an exhibit that pays tribute to the almost 300-year legacy of nuns’ humanitarian contributions. The exhibit, which debuted at the Cincinnati Museum Center in May, will travel nationwide for three years thereafter.

Hunt Design (Pasadena) designed the environmental graphics. The firm’s design team emphasized the sisterhood’s historical legacy by creating a sepia-tone backdrop and selecting photos that span more than a century of demonstrating nuns’ many acts of compassion and service.

Benchmark Scenery (Glendale, CA), which built the exhibit’s hardware, developed a custom installation system that allows the 140 panels to be jointly mounted via a system of long bolts and levers. However, because the interlocking system required precise alignment, its installation became time-consuming and tedious, according to John Gibson, Crush Creative’s project manager. Benchmark also suggested that Crush fabricate the graphics using wood and Alcan Composities USA Inc. Dibond composite-material panels because they offer sufficient flexibility to bend to the hardware’s curvature.

To fabricate the approximately 4,500 sq. ft. of graphics, Crush decorated the 4 x 8-ft., maple-veneer, plywood panels and Dibond® composite-material sheets using its Inca Eagle direct-to-board, flatbed printer with Sericol UV-cured inks.

Advertisement

Gibson recounted the project’s several challenges: “Hunt’s files arrived with bleed and die lines, which we printed on the substrate to ensure that Benchmark could make accurate trims to fit the exhibit configuration. We had to pay extra attention to file management and the RIP to ensure accurate prints.”