Beautification Through Park Art

Client:

City of Loma Linda

Materials/Products Highlight:

Celtec® Ultra White Solid PVC Signboard

Project:

A beautification project of a city park through Park Art. A&I converted hand-drawn illustrations into digital files. We used a Colex wide-format flatbed digital contour cutting system to custom die-cut Celtec® Ultra White Solid PVC Signboard material into works of art for installation as Park Art.

 

What are Beautification Projects?

While driving through your city, do you ever notice beautification? This could be art structures, statues, manicured parks with large flowing trees, or as simple as medians filled with bright flowers and shrubbery. Beautification plays an essential role in making visual improvements to a town, city, or urban area. It helps foster connections among the community. Living in well-maintained, pleasant surroundings and clean communities enhances a person’s quality of life and neighborhood aesthetics.

Beautification can also lead to better satisfaction and greater property values. Overall, community beautification is essential because it makes a statement: someone cares and can draw others to visit, live, and work within it. Everyone wants to live somewhere they can be proud. Loma Linda is such a community, home to the world-famous Loma Linda University and Medical Center. Not only does it employ hundreds of people, but the hospital and University also attract others from all over who come seeking medical help for their children and family members. It is a caring environment within a beautiful City.

 

City Park Beautification

As part of this project, A&I received a call from Loma Linda, where the city explained they wanted their “Park Art “vision to become a reality. They were working on a park enhancement project. This involved cut-out art pieces hand-sketched by an artist and attached to tubular steel fences surrounding a city park. Through this beautification project, smiles could be put on the faces of motorists passing by and entice visitors to enjoy a day in the peaceful setting of the park.

 

The Right Materials

The city wanted to find a material that would be as sturdy as the metal currently in use but would not rust over time. In addition, the potential material needed to be cut into shapes, some as intricate as lace. It should also be weather resistant and withstand other outside forces. A&I was ready to find a solution to these challenges and use our new Colex wide-format flatbed digital contour cutting system to handle the task. This machine can do precise trimming, routing, and creasing on both rigid and flexible materials.

To meet the city’s requirements, we chose a material made by CELTEC Premium Solutions, a manufacturer of innovative plastic sheet products. We used the Celtec® Solid Ultra White PVC Signboard for the Park Art Project. This material is especially designed to replace wood, metal, and other traditional materials with various applications used for outside signage and inside artwork with durability lasting from 5 to 10 years, getting a great return on your investment!

This material comes in multiple colors to choose from, including black and white. It comes from a family of graphic and display materials designed with a unique combination of performance features that make this material ideal for digital and screen printing, signage, exhibits, POP (point-of-purchase), and more. If you are concerned with safety, their materials are lead and heavy metal free, optimizing the performance you can count on. In addition to the excellent features mentioned, it is rustproof, rot-proof, waterproof, resistant to many outside elements, and if that’s not enough, it is recyclable! The Ultra White PVC Signboard would pop and showcase visually against the black fence while complementing the green grass backdrop of the park.

 

Challenges & What We Learned

Even with such an excellent substrate, there were still some challenges. First, the time-intensive process of retracing and digitizing the intricate artwork into a workable file was necessary. Next, our tech needed to program the Colex cutter to make the vision come alive with the digital file. Using the cutting board, 48×96 pieces of the Ultra White Signboard were turned into works of art! The sharp “V” shaped corners of the lacey pattern on the smallest butterfly wing design were a hurdle during the cutting process. These would necessitate being rounded out a bit as the router bit could not get into the tiny area. On the opposite end, the most enormous design pattern was up to 8 feet long, with many curves and intricate spaces to cut out. Our last obstacle was ensuring sturdiness and safety when mounting and attaching the artwork to the fence.

We learned to overcome many challenges this project presented. In the end, the beautification of the Park Art will serve the enjoyment for Loma Linda’s residences for years to come. So next time you have a beautification project, consider A&I and use one of the many options CELTEC products can offer. All the decorative elements and signage this material can be used for. A&I would love to show you samples and make your vision come alive in print. The possibilities are endless.