Imagic Provides Aspen With Colorful Public-Service Vehicles

In 1995, brothers Ed and Bernie Massey founded Portraits of Hope, a Santa Monica, CA-based nonprofit organization that engages ill and disabled children in the creation of large-scale art. For the fourth time, media-manufacturer MACtac (Stow, OH) has partnered with the organization and donated material to be used with the project. Previous projects have entailed wrapping NYC taxicabs, wrapping lifeguard towers for an exhibit at Santa Monica Pier, and bedecking the 40,000-sq.-ft. Ameriquest Soaring Dreams airship.

To fill this year’s wraps with color, Portraits of Hope arranged for more than 2,000 ill and handicapped children – as well as students from economically disadvantaged families – from the Braille Institute, Shriners Hospitals for Children, and several Denver hospitals and inner-city schools, to paint the material with vibrant colors. Over the course of two weeks, they brought the wraps to life with vibrant hues of paint.

“The opportunity to contribute to Portraits of Hope’s mission of providing children with hope never ceases to be a rewarding experience for MACtac,” Jennifer Bowman, the company’s corporate-marketing director, said.
For the most recent Portraits of Hope project, the organization approached Aspen, CO city officials about wrapping approximately 30 of the city’s emergency-service vehicles – fire trucks and vehicles, ambulances and tanker trucks, among others. MACtac donated 35 rolls of its IMAGin® JT5529BFD air-release, adhesive vinyl. IMAGIC, a Burbank, CA-based, digital-service provider, printed the material with flower and geometric-
shape patterns. Sabrina Smith, the shop’s executive assistant, said the shop, in operation since 1989, devotes approximately 65% of its work to vehicle wraps.

The Massey brothers approached David Allman, an Imagic managing partner, about the project after having heard about the shop from a contact at Titan Outdoor Adv. She said, “Only one meeting was needed. David could tell from the Massey brothers’ passion that our shop would be proud to work with them.”

Deborah Ricketts, a Portraits of Hope designer, incorporated artwork and the organization’s logo into Imagic’s provided templates before returning the file. Imagic managed printing with Caldera’s Version 9.1 RIP, and output the material on its HP Scitex XL1500 solvent-ink printer with Triangle inks. After the children painted the panels, they were returned to Imagic for a UV-topcoat application. Several of the vehicles required complementary, cut-vinyl graphics, which the shop output on a Graphtec FC-8000 cutter.

To simplify installation, Imagic named each panel’s location on a specific vehicle to ensure accurate installation, and printed the panels in configurations that minimized waste (SUVs required roughly 15 panels, whereas tanker trucks needed approximately 20).

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Imagic connected Portraits of Hope with Vinyl Touch Graphics, Tony Lanzito’s Chicago-based shop, which handled installation. In most cases, the wraps will be displayed for four or five months; the ambulances will remain wrapped through the 2014 Winter X Games, which will take place in Aspen, January 23-26.

“It’s nice to know that … a little bit of paint and a lot of determination can change a child’s outlook on life,” Smith said.

For more information about the organization, visit www.portraitsofhope.org