Adgraphix Blog

A Bit of Silver and Bronze

Wed, 09 May 2012 20:20:00 -0600

I am stoked to anounce that we have won three awards at the 2012 New Zealand Sign And Display Awards held in Wellington. The awards attract the very best work from sign and display companies across the country. It's been quite a few years since we last entered these awards so we are very proud to come away with this result. Last February when we were doing the finishing touches on our new signs and installation premises Christchurch turned into chaos. The earthquake certainly put a spanner in the works for us getting things underway smoothly. Just over a year on, our signs team has grown and are as busy as ever. We get a lot of positive comments about our building signage and flags so it was great to pick up silver. Below are our entries that were successful at this years awards.

Christchurch International Airport carpark - Rugby World Cup promotion. 'Bronze'

Alpine View Lifestyle Village dimensional and backlit signs. 'Bronze'

Alpine View Lifestyle Village dimensional and backlit signs.

Adgraphix self promotion building signage. 'Silver'

Cool Vehicle FX

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:45:00 -0600

The 1080 films from 3M are perfect for giving the exterior of your vehicle a head turning finish. You can do a part of your vehicle (eg bonnet, roof or racing stripes), the whole lot in a single effect or go all out with a mixture of different effects. These self adhesive films conform to the curves of the vehicles body brilliantly. Choose from matt finished white, black, silver or military green. Carbon fibre black or white. Brushed aluminium, steel, titanium, gold or steel blue.

If you want to give your company vehicle, race car or boat a bit of a face-lift then get in contact with us. We are certified applicators for 3M products.

In 3M's words:

Distinctive
Stand out in the crowd with film series 1080. Choose from a variety of finishes, textures and colors that offer a unique, head-turning look.

Innovative 
3M is a leader, not a follower, and we’re passionate about offering you the most innovative vehicle personalization products.

Trusted
Create a look that says you set your own course. Trust that look to the 3M brand promise of quality, reliability, service and warranty.

view 3M 1080 website here.

Whatever Spins Your Wheels

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:53:00 -0600

We've been getting through a few vehicles lately. These pics are examples of different businesses using their cars, vans and trucks to get brand awareness up. There is a lot of real estate on a vehicle to get a message across. You can go as simple as having just your name, either simply placed or screaming out for attention. Throw some details on, show what you do, the choice is yours. We can talk you through what works and what doesn't, providing mock-ups before work proceed. You might be surprised how cost effective this advertising is.

On the materials front, we do full colour digital (we reckon we are the best in the business at digital), computer cut coloured vinyls and windows films. There is a great range of vinyl effects available. We can even wrap your vehicle in carbon fibre or matt finish vinyls.

El Tradicional!

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:40:00 -0700

We are at the cutting edge of sign and print technology but that doesn't stop us from keeping to our roots; there's still a place for the trusty brush. All the digital technology has it's place, but there isn't an alternative to traditional brushed signage, particularly for exterior building signage. Size isn't a problem, actually most the work we do is large renderings of company logos. Have a look at the samples below which walk you through the process of getting logo element painted onto a concrete wall.

This is called pouncing. This is a pen drawing of the logo on paper. All of the pen lines have had small holes punched along them. Once the pounce is taped in place we pat chalk dust through the holes to leave an imprint on the building.

The pounce is removed and the chalk powder outline of the logo remains ready for painting.

The logo edges are 'cut in' with traditional signwriting brushes, then the rest is filled in.

After a couple of coats its all done and looks great.

Other examples...

Easy Message Changeovers

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 20:40:00 -0700

This footpath sign is a new addition to our range. It's perfect for use where you want to change your messages regularly. Unlike a standard sign which require a blade change, this model has a clever system that holds a paper poster between a pair of clear acrylic sheets. It's built for indoor or outdoor use and the base can be filled with sand or water to give it extra stability. It's sure to be noticed at a decent A1 size. To change the poster simply lift the top bar off to reveal the envelope where the poster can be removed and replaced. It comes in a range of colours... blue, yellow, orange and red and black, as pictured.

click here to view more details>>

Perfect Backlits

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:40:00 -0700

We now offer the absolute best in illuminated printing. Often backlits are let down by dull colours, washy blacks and shadows or colour casts (when an image looks slightly yellow or green etc) which ruin a great image. Up until now we've used in-house developed techniques to get great backlits with densities that don't wash out when the lights are on, but this was never completely reliable. We had a new addition late last year in the form of a spectrophotometer. The great thing about this new model is that it does transmissive readings.

Confusing jargon? A spectrophotometer is a device that scans colour by reflecting a light off it and then provides a digital reading to a software programme. Transmissive readings are done by shining a light through the colour to simulate a light box. For us it allows complete control of all backlit colour. For you it means absolutely brilliant backlit graphics with great skin tones and colours that match what you see on your screen. The accurate calibration of our system ensures that backlits get the same attention to detail as all other standard print media we do. It's predictable and reliable colour.

Colour management - how can it help?

If we threw a file into our image processor with all colour settings turned off then your guess is as good as mine what the image may print like.

By turning the settings on, the system requires extra info to work properly or it's just having a guess too. It needs to know how the graphic was made, from a colour point of view. It also needs to know where these colours are going. Printer, ink and media have a big influence on what an image will ultimately look like. To control this properly we need to map all the colours we can print for each media we print on... these are called icc profiles.

3D map of the full gamut (range) of colour of a synthetic paper using UV curable ink.

An icc profile is in basic terms, a data file of a 3D map that defines all colours highlights and shadows that a printer can produce on a particular media. By having this colour map, the image processor can accuratley translate your colours from your file to reproduce on the media required, and if it can't do a perfect match it will mathematically get the colour as close as damn possible to the original colour in the file.

The key to making this process work is having accurate measurements, that's why our Barbieri Spectrophotometer is so important.

Bronzed All Over

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:15:00 -0700

Sounds like a team effort out in the sun during lunch breaks, but we've been bronzed in a different way. We have just been audited and certified bronze level as part of the Enviro-Mark™NZ programme. We've been a 'working towards' member of Enviro-Mark™NZ for far too long! It became a bit of a rocky ride due to events that hit us in the last two years, but we are completely back on track. We're on our way towards meeting the criteria for silver then ultimately gold certification, in our opinion of course (the next audit will tell). The Enviro-Mark™NZ programme is important to us, it's a way you can verify our dedication to a safer workplace and a reduced impact on the environment.

WHAT DOES BRONZE MEAN?

Adgraphix has identified and assessed its compliance with applicable health, safety and environmental legislation and has a clear understanding of what parts of its operations the emerging EMS will cover.

SUMMARY OF REQUIREMENTS:

Identify applicable health, safety and environmental legislative requirements
Rectify any identified legislative compliance non-conformities
Scope your EMS
Allocate the necessary resources for the implementation and maintenance of your EMS

Shiny and New(ish) Website

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:50:00 -0700

It's been in the works for quite a while and worth the wait. Everything has been shuffled about, heaps of new content has been added including better (and bigger) pictures and a good selection of brochures that include plenty of information about us and our products. Navigate with the left margin the same as the previous site. At the top is a group of product categories to make finding products easier. Below them some info about some of our printing and finishing processes. Last of all is the links to our YouTube vids (next on the list to update) and info about us, our technology and the environment. It's still constantly changing and being improved so keep an eye out if you have a project in mind. I'm sure it should cover everything you need to know, want to know and didn't know you didn't to know. Here's some screen shots from the new site... even better jump over here www.adgraphix.co.nz

Signs and signwriting page

Brand new portable display page complete with brochures

Brief descriptions of what our equipment can do for you.

Funny Ha Ha

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:20:00 -0700

Those funny, crazy, talented people are heading back to town. Even with much of the city centre off limits, the festival is set to be awesome. This (next) year we're a proud partner of the 'Stronger Christchurch' World Buskers Festival 2012. Like most things in Christchurch it's going to be a bit different to last year. It's all set to happen in Hagely Park along with other sites around the city. Wanna know more? Here's some blurb from the website... www.worldbuskersfestival.com Check out the schedule and start planning!!!

A HOME-GROWN EVENT OF FUN AND EXCITEMENT WE’VE ALL COME TO LOVE.

So get ready to be thrilled and chilled when fifty-five of the world’s best street and stage performers arrive and turn our town into fun central.

The 2012 Stronger Christchurch WORLD BUSKERS FESTIVAL will be BIG! We’ve got a new face (you may have noticed our big, beautiful back up dancers) and we’re thinking big fun, big line up, big laughs and even a few big surprises equals a great big fun time for all.

Hagley Park becomes BUSKER PARK from 19 - 29 January. Not only a great setting but a easy way to experience some of the biggest and best comedians, acrobats, jugglers, daredevils, burlesque artists, aerialists and showmen (and women). Festival shows outside the park, include the CPIT MUSIC PITCH in the City Mall, Ryan Security BUSKERS AT BRIGHTON, two nightly comedy shows at the Christchurch Casino, Christchurch Casino COMEDY HOUR (R20) & Christchurch Casino MIDNIGHT CARNIVALE (R20) and the festival’s well loved iSite LATE NIGHT WITH THE BUSKERS (R18) at The Colombo round out the 19th annual festival and make it the biggest programme we’ve ever created.

Happy Holidays

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:35:00 -0700

Adgraphix will be closed for the summer holidays from Dec 23rd to 16th January 2012.

Impressive 360

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 23:48:00 -0700

Our latest piece of kit has arrived. This is an Oce Arizona 360 GT mid-range flatbed printer, just recently released. It is a great addition and fills the need we had for very high detail direct to substrate printer. The resolution and sharpness of the images that come of this printer is truly fantastic. The 360 also has a white printing system where the white is printed in-line as opposed to our old system which printed white as a separate print to the colour content. What that means is we can print white 'as needed' and printing is faster. We'll get busy building profiles to make sure the colour output is on the mark and images have excellent contrast and shadow detail.

Adobe CS5.5 Ready

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:00:00 -0600

Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to get files to us and like many of you, we have made the move to Adobe Creative Suite 5.5. Our prepress department is all up to date, ready for your files. We 're more than happy to take pdf files, but we definately prefer you to supply native files for better output.

Posters Posters Posters

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:00:00 -0600

If you need posters then we've got what you're after. Great quality, great turn-around and even better.... a great price. These posters come from a roll of paper so you don't need to limit yourself to just standard paper sizes. We can do all those and any size you want so long as it fits in the width of 1.35 metres. These posters are printed onto 200gsm paper stock and are suited for indoor use (for outdoors we have synthetic paper) and we can do pretty big runs cost effectively.

No need to think small, A0 is a breeze and as I mentioned we can go even bigger, cost effectively. The colour packs punch and is guaranteed to be seen. Printed with the latest large format digital technology the quality is as sharp as a tack. So don't forget... if you want ten, twenty or a hundred posters, you won't want to miss this fantastic cost effective printing.

When Good Fonts Go Bad

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:16:00 -0600

I don't know if it's due to the 'I want it now' world we live in or if it's just been forgotten, but letter spacing is not getting the user intervention it needs every now and then. As a signwriter by trade I notice when kerning has turned a bit to custard. Auto font kerning works really well most of the time, but looking at some of the print and signage about, some letter pairs have slipped through the goal posts. I've thrown together some shots of scenarios that cover kerning and tracking at a basic level.

First of all it's handy to know that kerning is adjusting the space between two letters and should be set visually so the white space between them looks even. Tracking is controlling how close or spaced apart all letters are collectively, and it is performed in an even fashion.

This sample below is a double no. First error is the kerning on the Wordsworth and the second is the font for plumbers. The space between the w and o is so large that it should be W Ordsworth. When this happens the operator should fix the spacing manually so it reads as one word. The second fortunately doesn't happen with trained graphic designers often, but it's a fact that some fonts are not designed for all capitals use. The corrected version has the W o kerning fixed, a bit negative tracking and the script font below is changed to caps and lower case. It's heaps easier to read.

This next example is not the most attractive font, but the tracking is exactly as it came out once typed. Visually, a few combinations of letters here don't look even, the worst being the W and o. The corrected version below only has kerning adjusted.

Last example is a look at tracking. When a sentence is typed in a design application it is set with a default tracking of 0. Personally I like to see a bit of negative tracking, depending on the font. The lines below are all at different levels of negative tracking from the top at 0 folowed by -15, through to -75 at the bottom. There is no manual kerning in this example.

Billboard Art

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:40:00 -0600

Some of you may have noticed artwork appearing around the streets of Christchurch. iSite Media and Adgraphix have teamed up together and gifted media and production, providing these billboard sized artworks to the community. They all feature local artist such as the three pictured from Tony Cribb, Tony De Lautour and Philip Trusttum. Keep your eyes peeled.

Congrats To CIAL

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 17:45:00 -0600

A big congratulations to Christchurch International Airport Limited on their recent award!!! 'The airbridges and video theming initiatives around the airport won The Best Arrivals Experience award at the 2011 Future Travel Experience awards in Vancouver' (read article here). We are proud to have involved. We supplied and installed graphics which grace the walls of the airbridges and terminal.

Sign That Igloo

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:30:00 -0600

We took on the challenge to put large graphics onto this flexible dome and it couldn't have worked out better. The installation God's were looking over us as we had some fantastic Christchurch weather during the install. The self adhesive graphics (big stickers) were sectioned off into a jigsaw type arrangement as the tallest figure was 5m high and far too big to manage in one piece from a cherry-picker. As it turned out we're not too bad at jigsaws cause all the arms heads and legs ended up in the right spot! Dressing up Hagley Park incorporated a range of signage including, banners, flags sign panels and mesh speaker covers. This project came together brilliantly and wer'e pretty stoked with the end result.

We've got a great range of printing equipment perfect for event signage and livery. We do everything, whether it's directional signage panels, massive banners or stage backdrops. We have New Zealand's widest printing right here in Christchurch so size is never a problem. See photos below.

Sponsor logo's added

At full reach adding the roof graphics

Combination of banners and fabric flag

Mesh speaker tower covers

Mesh banner

Business Beyond The Ordinary

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 22:00:00 -0600

Dscoop (Digital Solutions Cooperative) Asia recently held their annual conference in Singapore. This year was the first year that users of HP Scitex large format digital printers were invited to attend. It's a chance to get together, share ideas and listen to speakers. During the conference I managed to get some inspiration and insight into what's happening on a world level with large format printing. Of some concern was the positioning of social media. What struck me was the cohesion between print and online communications not being discussed in depth. I was amazed how brands are deep seeded into Facebook and probably without the general public being aware they're being influenced as much as they are.

The speakers who talked about social media didn't talk much about the value of balancing both online and print media (which would have been handy at a print conference). You still can't beat holding written words in my opinion and online marketing doesn't always work alone without print and signage supporting it. Those concerned about environmental impacts or the value of print should visit Part Of Life, a Print NZ intitiative to promote print. During the conference, a positive I heard was out-of-home media is growing (as it should) and that print (billboards etc) is considered the last of the mass media. Nice!

printed ideas booth

Caked In Snow

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:08:00 -0600

First of all, apologies to our customers who we could not meet their deadlines. We managed to get some staff in during the worst of the weather but unfortunately mother nature stopped us from getting more. They said it was gonna be a long cold storm... and they were right. Here are some pics of the white stuff. The benefits of having a 4 wheel drive were plain to see, moving a two wheel drive wasn't an easy feat (see pic of Daryl)! Hopefully we don't get another event like this for some time. It's par for course for many cities around the world, but we are not geared up to cope with this in Christchurch. The fun wears off pretty quickly. I think the kids are the winners when it comes to snow!!!

Cold white and cold!

Frozen milk!

and the snow keeps falling

um Daryl... you're sort of in the way of the grader.

might be time for plan B!

Another Dimension

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:15:00 -0600

There are so many ways to showcase your logo or design. This is an example of building signage produced using dimensional elements. You create a whole host of effects that two dimensional signage cannot show, such as highlighting and soft shadows created by the sun and/or artificial lighting. Digital profile cutting can be achieved in many ways. Laser cutting, routering and hot-knifing to name a few. We produce many dimensional products in-house. The installation of our Esko Kongsberg digital cutter has opened the door to a world of 3D products. These include letters and elements cut from thick plastics, to thick corrugated cards which can be assembled into shelves and boxes for promotional use.

Esko Kongsberg digital cutter.