Phoenix Entertainment District Enjoys Legendary Signage

The city of Phoenix truly lives up to its name. Once a sleepy desert city, its population boomed through the mid-20th Century (freon played a role), and through the early years of the Information Age boom. The economic collapse of 2008 hit Phoenix among the hardest of any cities; yet, true to form, articles published last year in the Phoenix Business Journal indicated property values had risen more than 20% year-to-year versus 2011, and that its economy was one of the 20 fastest-growing in the U.S. Its center-city population of 1.4 million makes it the sixth-largest American city.

And, despite its stereotype as a haven for the elderly, it’s become a magnet for ambitious, young professionals. www.CBSMoneywatch.com named it the top city in the U.S. for single women in 2011, and Bloomberg Business Week named it to its Top 50 U.S. cities last year.

Part of its allure to Generations X and Y is its abundance of entertainment districts and other options. With such professional-sports venues as America U.S. Airways Center and Chase Field, and more than 800,000 sq. ft. of retail space, the Legends district ranks among the city’s most prominent. Tempe, AZ-based bluemedia helped brand the 13-block area with a wrap that covers part of a wall on a parking garage in the area.

The shop has a well-established relationship with District officials; it’s produced wraps and signage for specific events and sports teams who play in the district’s arena. Glenn Probert, a bluemedia national-sales executive, previously worked with Legends officials in establishing the area’s master sign plan two years ago. With full knowledge of district sign regulations, permitting was “merely a formality.”

The banner serves an important marketing function for the district. It’s visible on flight paths into Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport, and, when Legends officials take prospective tenants or advertisers for a tour, it’s one of the first things they see.

Using the client’s existing logo, bluemedia contracted Hamburg, Germany-based ShapeShifter Media to develop the 3-D effect. Bluemedia printed the wrap on Ultraflex’s Normandy Pro FL 13-oz. material, a dense material designed for extruded-frame installations (the project was installed within a Signcomp frame).

Advertisement

“They’d seen the unique effects we could create with the ShapeShiter software, and wanted a similar effect for the banner,” Jared Smith, bluemedia’s president, said.

They also wanted to enhance the wrap’s fun factor by creating the illusion that the installation was still underway – the wrap include images of three installers rappelling down the side of the parking-garage wall, and faux bricks integrated into the design. Ropes hanging down the wall, plus protruding D-rings, add to this bit of trompe l’oeil.

The shop printed the piece in two, 13 x 85-ft. panels on the shop’s HP Scitex XLJet 1500 at 300 dpi. To maximize color vibrancy, bluemedia used G7-certified (G7 is a grayscale, color-specification standard that maximizes contrast and color fidelity) profiles.