Big Picture - October 2020 - 18

CLASS ON WHEELS

The Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design
wanted to turn an RV into a mobile design studio, so they
sought out Ink Monstr (inkmonstr.com) in Denver to turn their
dreams into reality.
"Though this vehicle looks like an RV on the outside, on the
inside lives a mobile classroom where graphic design students
are creating. We loved the idea that students would be inside of
this vehicle gathering inspiration on the move," says Hillary

Lauer, Marketing Manager, Ink Monstr. "This job is especially
important to us as a graphic design company because creative
graphic designers are our future. As a company, we thrive on
innovation and this project embodies forward thinking."
The real challenge of this project was time, as they had to
complete the wrap in less than 10 days. "This job had a tight
turnaround during a busy time of year. Once it was printed
and laminated, we installed this wrap in eight days," says
Lauer. "We had a full shop at the time, so we were proud to
get this job finished on time."
Ink Monster used an HP Latex 570 printer onto 3M 180cv3
Controltac Graphic Film with Comply v3 Adhesive and laminated it with 3M 8518 Scotchcal Gloss overlaminate. The kids loved
the wrap and were ecstatic to learn more about graphic design
as the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design Wandering
Pixel RV travelled from classroom to classroom.

HONOR ABLE MENTION
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FORMAT
AWA R DS

FRESH AIRBOATS

BIG PICTURE

October 2020

Tonia Suarez of Painterchic Vinyl (facebook.

com/painterchicvinyl) personally sees every one of her
projects through, from start to finish. "I'm a one-woman shop
who does everything from design to printing to installing
in-house, and I specialize in custom boat wraps," says Suarez.
"Airboats are very challenging to design for, as well as
wrap, due to the unique shape that each one has," she says.
"Because every airboat is custom designed and built to the
owner's specs, there are no two airboats exactly alike. Each
boat brings me a new challenge and I love every minute of it!"
For two recent projects [pictured, right], Suarez printed with
a Roland TrueVis VG2-640 printer onto 3M IJ180mC-10 with a
3M 8518 Scotchcal Gloss overlaminate. "The first one was for
Alumitech Airboats and the second for Whirlwind Propellers,"
she says. "Between the two of these boats there's approximately
400 square feet of vinyl used to create these one-of-a-kind wraps."
Suarez specializes in boat wraps, but airboats bring a
special level of difficulty to the table. These boats are unique
in many ways, and are essentially amphibious as they can
traverse both land and water, which makes them perfect for
the Florida landscape.

"They're used in so many different industries beyond
recreational riding, such as search and rescue teams and first
responders in disaster relief, the oil industry, ecotourism,
commercial and charter fishing, utilities, seismic and archaeology research, and even the military," says Saurez. "These boats
are put into extreme conditions all around the world from the
frozen tundras of Alaska and Canada to the Equator, and each
of these conditions requires a different approach for its
environment." Suarez has found that the aforementioned 3M
products work best for the industry and the extreme conditions.

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AWA R DS

http://www.inkmonstr.com

Big Picture - October 2020

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