Largest Artistic Wall Sticker in Europe printed on Mutoh ValueJet 1638 printers
18 January 2021: Three artists (Alvari, Kool Koor and Mino1) demonstrated their talent as graffiti artists together by creating the largest ever produced artistic wall sticker in Europe, covering more than 4000 m² of surface. The sticker was printed on two Mutoh ValueJet 1638 Printers by Promo Signs, a near Brussels large format printing company that is specialized in the real estate panel market. The job was ordered by AG Real Estate, a real estate subsidiary of AG Insurance and the real estate consultant of Ageas.
The implementation of the Ground up project was involved coordination between the artists, the production company and the alpinists who did the placement. “The final image was delivered to us as a huge pdf file consisting of vector graphics and vignettes, which made ripping the file very time consuming. To make it practical for the alpinists who were in charge of sticking the vinyl strips to the building, the job was cut up in ribbons of 1.37 m wide and 2.60 m long, with an overlap of 5 cm. In total we produced more than 1,000 strips,” explains Michaël Swalens, Promo Signs Technical Manager.
The vinyl graffiti would stay at least 3 years on the tower, so a good UV-resistance was crucial. For that reason, the printing was done on two Mutoh ValueJet 1638 printers, using Mutoh Universal Mild Solvent inks. On top of that, every strip was covered with a PVC-free laminate to protect it even better against the elements. For Promo Signs it was a first to take on such a large-scale project, but we surely hope it is not the last,” he adds.
Sticking vinyl to rough concrete walls is already a challenge by itself, so a specially developed vinyl by 3M was used. “This special vinyl has a thickness of 55 microns and is very sticky, so it adheres well to rough surfaces such as brick and concrete. Application was done with a rubber roller by which the material is rubbed onto the wall. Placing this on a stable scaffold is already very laborious by itself, so imagine doing this whilst hanging 50 meters above the ground on a rope,” says Vincent Fournil, Promo Signs Production Manager.
