It's an anniversary of sorts here at the Printer's Devil blogspace. Today being my 650th posting under this moniker.
This resulted in a trip down memory lane looking at past musings, and seemed a suitable enough excuse to action something already on the 'to do' list - that being to reprise a topic from 2009.
At the time I wrote about a local company, Allsigns, which had produced some graphic panels for Brentford High Street, an area blighted by a stalled redevelopment plan.
More than three years later, the proposed development remains a proposal, the blight is just as blighty as ever, and those panels are still up.
Every time I walk past the graphics I am amazed at how good they still look.
As good as new, in fact. Not faded. And - somewhat incredibly given the locale - not vandalised or defaced.
A call to Allsigns was in order to find out the secret. Actually it was a call to Octink as the company rebranded a while back to better reflect its wider offering.
Managing director Mike Freely drives past the panels most days and unsurprisingly keeps an eye on them too. He said there hadn't been a single incident of graffiti or vandalism, which he believes is testament to the fact that the designs were by local schoolkids. "It's almost self-policing," he says.
And he too is delighted by how well the panels have weathered the sun, wind, rain and general grime of the high street environment.
And now for the big reveal. How were they printed? Directly onto aluminium composite material using one of Octink's two Inca Spyders, with a gloss coating.
Useful to know
for anyone with a requirement for graphics with longevity.
Who knows, given the rate of current progress I might well be reporting back on their condition again in a few hundred blogs' time.
