LAS VEGAS, July 17, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Image 360 is proud to announce that team members Terry & Ruth Whalen won the coveted Project of the Year award at the annual Alliance Franchise Brands Convention held at the Gaylord Texan in March 2019.
This prized industry award is given to the Center that creates the most innovative, difficult or creative project in the Alliance Franchise Brands Sign & Graphics Division in 2018. Terry and Ruth received the award for their complex, color-changing LED signs for the MMJ America building in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Positive Recommendations
Kevin at Kevco Construction referred the owners of MMJ to Image360 Las Vegas South. Having worked with Terry and his team before but not on anything to this scale. However, Kevin liked the work ethic, reliability and final result of food court signage replacements they had done for another one of his clients. So, when this large, complex project came along, Kevin felt comfortable recommending Terry's team at Image360 Las Vegas. The owners of the MMJ building contacted Tina Ayala, Project Manager, and the Whalen's daughter, in 2016 with a rendering of their design idea.
They wanted something original to stand out in an increasingly competitive industry. Since the building was also in Las Vegas, a city known for its lights, the client was looking for something
eye catching enough to get noticed. They wanted the exterior of the sign to have an unfinished, industrial look covering as much as the building as possible. Behind the metal, they envisioned RBG changing colored lights.
Large Scale Ingenuity And Innovation
To bring their vision to life, the Image360 Las Vegas South team created two massive building signs and a large pylon sign that would create the effect the client was looking for. To construct the signs, the team used aluminum tubing and thirty 5'x10' sheets of .063" thick aluminum. The fabrication of the wall and pylon signs was intense.
Terry recalls, "We knew what we were doing, but it was big and time-consuming. There was a lot of welding, flatbed printing, and router cutting. The flatbed printing took 40 hours just in itself. We researched companies that manufacture sheets of metal similar to what the customer wanted, but it wasn't quite right. So, we cut each hole in-house with our router." Their team spent 60 hours router cutting holes of varying sizes into the aluminum sheets. The project also required installing over 3,000 color changing lights. It took 40 hours to install 850 RBG LED lights on each of the 30 panels.
Overcoming Challenges For Success
One of the biggest challenges for the project was getting approvals, which took well over a year. It was a lengthy process getting the design just right and approved by the client, but the city permits were even more challenging. Permit applications didn't have a category that matched the description of what Image360 Las Vegas South had built. It was too large and complex to be a sign by city standards, the only sign elements were the MMJ letters and logo. So, the permit office didn't know what to pull a permit for. After being tied up in red tape for months, they were finally able to pull some strings to get the permit approval needed.
Meticulous Attention To Detail
However, installation turned out to be just as complex as the rest of the project. Each stage of the installation had to be meticulously planned. Installation was a week-long process, starting with using a crane to raise and hold the aluminum panels while they were mounted to the building. The crew had to be extra prudent to make sure they were installed precisely on a difficult site. The electrical installation process was simple, but the sheer amount of wiring made it time-consuming and challenging to make sure everything was functioning properly.
The Long Road To Success
After two years, all their hard work paid off. The result was impressive. Terry recalls, "Before we were completely finished with the installation, the clients were taking videos on their phones and putting them online." Even though LED lights are typically more impressive at night, this effect was just as dazzling in the daytime. The spectacular result earned Terry & Ruth the coveted Project of the Year award at the annual Alliance Franchise Brands Convention 2019, a well-deserved accomplishment for their dedication and innovative approach to this sizable project.
Congratulations And Recognition
The Marketing Team and everyone from the Sign & Graphics division would like to congratulate Terry and Ruth Whalen, Tina Ayala, and Image360 Las Vegas South Team on their impressive project and their well-earned Project of the Year Award for 2018. You can visit them at https://www.image360lvs.com to view all of the services they provide.
SOURCE Image360 Las Vegas South
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