MMT Wraps Create Carnival Atmosphere

Once only a vacation option for the upper class, several cruise ships now offer economical excursions. Carnival Cruise, a dominant player in the budget-priced cruise market, wanted to make a splash on Times Square (where a sign must be eye-popping to merely be noticed) at Broadway and 49th St. What better way to convey the sun and fun of a Caribbean cruise than to create the illusion of cruise ship disembarking smack in the middle of the busiest neighborhood in the nation’s largest city?

Its agency of record, Arnold Worldwide (Boston), hired Metromedia Technologies (MMT), NYC, to create the colossal wrap, which comprises four panels that measure nearly 6,000 sq. ft. Arnold developed the concept while consulting MMT for fabrication and feasibility input.

After having preflighted the artwork using Adobe Photoshop, MMT’s design team assembled the files with Adobe InDesign. MMT’s account manager for the project, Gerry McLean, said, “Minimal intervention was needed prior to production. Arnold is a great partner; their files are always well prepared.”

The shop produced the building wrap on its proprietary 13-oz., frontlit vinyl (after sundown, HID lamps project light upward to create an “irie” aura around the clock). The shop fabricated the wraps using its proprietary, inkjet, drum-printing system. Installers joined the panels with a Fiab radio-frequency-welding system.

“The ‘ship-deck’ extension had to be created precisely, so that it aligned vertically and horizontally as
it wrapped around the board’s corner,” Vyas said. “We created the extension in three pieces with a bottom bleed because there was little room for adjustments to the board once installed because of the uplighting equipment at the base.”

To build further upon the Times Square installation’s buzz, MMT also fabricated an approximately 2,500-sq.-ft. wrap – installed with a cable-and-clip system – on a building at Jackson and S. Ervay St. in Dallas’ central business district to hawk Carnival cruises that depart from Galveston, TX, which sits on the Gulf of Mexico. Arnold Worldwide also ordered a wrap of a double-decker bus that directs sightseers around the Big Apple.
 

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