Rainier Industries’ Banners Brand Cowboy Country

The University of Wyoming, the only four-year institution of higher learning in the least populous U.S. state, enjoys tremendous support from its residents. Although Wyomingites are undoubtedly proud of the beauty of such natural landmarks as Old Faithful and the Grand Teton mountain range, they’re extremely devoted to the Cowboy (and Cowgirl) sports teams.

University of Wyoming athletic-department officials were approached by Rainier Industries’ (Tukwila, WA) Bruce Dickinson and Josh Lindholm about creating a series of 20 banners – which span approximately 3,000 sq. ft. — and other athletic-facility graphics to reinvigorate school spirit.

A key component would be a series of banners to adorn the concourse of Arena-Auditorium, home of the school’s men’s and women’s basketball teams. The school specified that the banners be suspended from the ceiling; the “Double-A”, as the arena is known, resides 7,220 ft. above sea level, which makes it the highest-altitude basketball facility in NCAA Division I. Thus, when the doors are left open on gamedays, swirling gusts force the banners to have a more stout wind load than most indoor installations need.
 

To further bolster the banners, Rainier installed a rigid framing system that’s typically used for commercial awnings. Installers drilled holes through the top of the frame, and square, aluminum tubing was welded around the frame. The poles were bolted directly under the inner seating bowl.

“These are a lot of extra steps we don’t normally take with an arena-banner installation, but these were all necessary to provide high-wind stability,” Lindholm, the account executive who managed the project, said.
Rainier Industries printed the area banners on 13-oz. ImageText vinyl, which contains a built-in scrim for extra support. To ensure good visual acuity within the arena’s rounded contours, Rainier’s art department carefully considered the scale and dimensions before developing the series of 4 x 6-ft. banners. Rainier printed the wraps, for which it received 150-dpi files, on its Durst Rho 500 roll-to-roll, UV-curable-ink printers at 600 dpi.

Rainier’s fabrication team devised a novel idea to offset the banners’ wind load. The shop used its in-house waterjet cutter to fashion pieces of powdercoated aluminum into gussets that feature the University of Wyoming logo, Ragtime Cowboy Joe riding a bucking bronco. The shop also used its recently purchased powdercoating oven to cover the frames and fortify them against the elements.

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“This has made a huge difference for us, because we can handle rush jobs,” Lindholm said. “Also, not paying for a subcontractor’s profit margin helps us keep prices competitive.”

Rainier also fabricated a series of eight banners that lines the corridor that leads out to the football field at the school’s War Memorial Stadium. These 8 x 2-ft. graphics were printed with 20-oz. UltraSmooth blockout vinyl on the Durst Rho 500.

Rainier printed them as double-sided graphics. To accomplish this, Lindholm said the shop ensured precise registration and allowed the ink to fully cure and prevent transfer to the other side. The pole pockets were built in by copying the uppermost 4 in. of the banner and rotating it so it’s just above the top, which allows the folded-over material to line up on the other side. Installers placed the banner using a flag-mount pole system attached to the overhead columns.

Complementary system graphics include vinyl wraps of the air vents outside the stadium, 7 ft. tall and 28 ft. in diameter, which were decorated with 22-oz., blockout media; and 85-ft.-long, horizontal banners – which were printed with 16-ft.-wide mesh material on the Durst Rho 500 – and hung over the fascia of the stadium’s lower bowl.