Having initially been commissioned to remain on the building for the four-day duration of the festival, at the end of the week the City of London Authority deemed it creative enough to remain in place for the following year.
What did you produce?
ABC decided it wanted to spell out the word ‘creativity’ in giant upper-case letters, one letter for each 20m2 window running the length of the side of the building.
It designed one of the letters itself and commissioned nine of its design customers to each design one of the remaining letters.
What did it entail?
Each letter consisted of 54 970x600mm panels which were printed on PVC on ABC’s Arizona 460GT UV flatbed. They were then cut to size by its Zünd cutter. The printing began on 18 May and installation finished on 22 May, just in time for the start of CDW.
Among ABC’s regular design customers who were given a letter to design were Barton Wilmore, John Thompson and Metropolitan Workshop.
Maintenance of the installation will be managed by ABC. Business development manager Lee McCloud said the cost of the maintenance would be offset by the positive PR the project garnered.
What challenges were overcome?
McCloud said: “Firstly it was about getting the nine designers singing off the same song sheet. They are all quite creative in their own rights. They went off on their own and had ideas but we had to keep it in line with CDW.
“The timescale was also difficult, something that would normally take a week had to be done in about four days.”
What was the feedback?
CDW sponsorship sales manager Joanna Kellett said: “By the time we had all decided it was happening we were about two weeks from show, which is scary, but ABC really pulled it out of the bag. Nine firms coming together is no mean feat and it was amazing they managed to get the work out in such a timely manner.
“We’re already talking about working with ABC next year so watch this space.”
