Tough Birds

Years ago, NFL training camps were no-frills, hard-nosed affairs meant to isolate the team from the public. However, today’s fans want to see their gridiron heroes in a much more accessible (and affordable) venue than the stadia where they play games.

With this in mind, the Atlanta Falcons hired Sky Design (Atlanta) to design environmental graphics for the team’s Flowery Branch, GA facility. Using Adobe’s Illustrator® and Photoshop®, Todd Vaught, the firm’s principal, incorporated Russell Athletic’s logo (Russell produces the jerseys league players wear) into the team’s trademark, red-and-black color scheme with images of stars such as Warrick Dunn and Keith Brooking.

Atlanta-based Capital Signs, which has partnered with Sky Design for 11 years, fabricated the graphics. Phil Panos, the shop’s general manager, said his shop fabricated approximately 1,600 sq. ft. of graphics, which comprised two, 8 x 9-ft. monument-sign banners; 12, 3-ft.-diameter fence medallions; a 15 x 15-ft. walkway supergraphic, a 15 x 58-ft. roof banner; five pavement graphics and two, column-hung banners.

Capital produced the digital graphics on its Mimaki USA(Suwanee, GA) JV3-250 SP solvent-ink printer with Oracal USA (Jacksonville, FL) 3651 calendered film and Ultraflex Systems Inc.(Randolph, NJ) Ultrabanner® material. The shop protected the graphics with a 3.2-mil, matte-finish overlaminate. To fabricate the fence medallions, Capital wrapped the graphics around Alcan Composities USA Inc.(St. Louis) ½-in.-thick, black Sintra® composite material. The hulking walkway graphic required covering a 2 x 6-ft., wood-framed support structure with ¾-in., pre-primed MDO that accommodates the printed graphics.

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