I would like to start the next Banner Across The USA. But this time with a huge
twist. A very Huge Twist!

This banner is going to be 10’ x 30’....one of those billboard wrap banners.
But not only is it going be big, it is going to have a map of the USA and all the
States outlined.

Next the banner is going to be cut in sections, with the New England States,
the Southern States, the Mid West States and the Western States. Then it will
be sent into each of those areas where these pieces of the map will be signed,
by sign shops, hopefully in the area the sign shop is on the map.

We need 4 Team leaders and an assistant ( in case the team leader needs help
or has to back out for some reason) from each section of the country to organize
and keep track of the banner in each region. They will be totally responsible to
get their project moving, find it if it gets lost and, when its finished, get it back to
me so I can take all sections to an International Letterhead Meet.

At the Meet, we will put it all back together, line up the seams, so that it looks
like a map again and photograph it!

All media will be accepted! We welcome Hand Painted, Vinyl, Gold / Silver leaf, Air Brush,
digital print. (try to resist using a magic marker)

We start organizing this project TODAY.

MY TO DO LIST:

1. FIND BANNER MATERIAL
2. EXAMINE COSTS
3. FIND SPONSORS
4. MAKE THE LAYOUT OF THE USA AND PAINT IT ON THE BANNER
5. CUT THE BANNER IN SECTIONS
6. LINE UP TEAM LEADERS IN THE RESPECTIVE REGIONS
7. PROMOTE THIS EVENT
8. GET THE BANNER SECTIONS SHIPPED TO THE TEAM LEADERS
9. KEEP TRACK OF MY TEAM GENERALS
10. GET THE SECTIONS TO THE LETTERHEAD MEET ON TIME!

Who’s IN?

[ October 02, 2001: Message edited by: Dave Draper ]

Oh and check your verbage...it sounds like the only medium allowed is "spit" and "nose oil" ???

[ October 01, 2001: Message edited by: Monte Jumper ]

So, RapidTac helps with costs = gets logo on banner(readable size)??

I'm in !!

sounds like a very neat idea...

what will happen to the banner after it's completion...

Is there going to be a theme?

My wife, Dana, and I would like to volunteer to head up a northeast or New York section. We would host a meet at our shop and get our section done.

I think that Mr. King has a grand idea and have the individual states done printed out then stitch them together.

I believe that you could make a scaled print out of the country and then print out individual states. it might prove to be more economical to print on scrap pieces or roll ends of materials.

A sponsor area could be included on the edges of the banner outside the outline of the states. It would prove to be beneficial if you could find a sponsor to be willing to allow the use of their FedEx or U.P.S. accounts to allow for the shipping to various locations around the states and then back to the final destination.

There are materials that could be used that would heat seal together. I am unsure of the manufacturer but I sure could find out some information on that. I believe that some of the awning vinyl materials will do this.

So.... please count us in as very much interested.
We will help out any way we can.

also, limit the size of the signing. that way no one in particular gets priority as far as visibility.
pking, that is a great idea about stitching the state into the banner.
sounds better logisticly.

another thought, how about the whole world.
let's not slight the rest of the planet. ?????
letterville is a worldwide community.
each state or country is responsible for their own portion of the banner.

roger gets to sign hawaii, er hawaryee, er huwauyee, dang where is that spell checker stevo??? (JAJ= just a joke)

RapidTac

great embryo of an idea dave!
another question dave, what are you gonna do with a billboard size banner?

standard bulletin....14' x 48'

these used to be called painted bulletins back when when i did that for a livin'
now everything is a big banner strapped to existing structures... how i long for the painted billboard days...

anybody out there remember "Urban Deluxe" trim???

mark

[ October 01, 2001: Message edited by: Mark Fair Signs ]

I remember "urban deluxe trim". It was the cool beveled edging that you popped on the edge of the small wall bulletins. We used to call the small boards around here "Sweet boards" because 99.99% of the small wall bulletins were owned at one time by Sweet advertising.

Lettering those boards was sweet... evry gosh darn pun intended...

I thought this was gonna be a fight.

Clarifications:

1. let's ban the use of magic marker on the banner

2. lets accept paint, vinyl, digital prints, airbrush, gold leaf, doming, silver leaf,

3. If the whole world wants in, then lets go for it.

4. I like Pats Idea, one banner one state...and that will work except for the small, tiny states of the New England Area.

If we do 1 banner per state, then we need to line up a team captain from each state.

Next, we need a map in .eps format, to scale that can be downloaded so that each team leader can prepare his own state banner and cut it to the scale size.

All the pieces should fit together, right? Think we can do this? It would be really awesome if 50 team leaders could follow instructions to the letter and make the map pieces fit together once they are at a letterhead meet.

The questions I have:

Do we have a sponsor dontate the banner material, that we cut up and send out to each states? (Thats a lot of shipping charges!)

Or would each team leader be willing to fork out money for the banner material for his state?
(even the state of Texas would fit on 4x4 foot piece of material...which isn't a great deal of expense.

If each state team leader goes out and gets his own banner material, how do we keep the banner material consistant, or do we need to?

Once its all put together, who has room for a banner the size of a billboard? It will weigh 60 to 100 pounds...just for the USA!

Keep your thoughts coming!

Keep volunteering,

Also, if those in Canada or any other country wants to get in on this, we would have to make the scale different...If the USA banner ends up 10 x 30 feet, can you imagine how big the Canadian banner would be? We might need a whole separate building!

Donna, you get to organize the Candian effort, eh?

What if, if I am reading Pat King's post right, we did use a 2 x 8 or whatever size banner for each state?

It would like kind of like a quilt. I think that is a great idea. Way to go, Pat!

I would like to volunteer Dana and I as New York captains. I will also get ahold of a banner maker i know.

Here is a picture of what I have in mind. The picture is to scale at 120 inches tall and 196 inches wide. The man is 6 foot tall. (clip art of map is from Corel Gallery Magic 200,000 1997 copyright.

Do you think this is a good size or does it need to be bigger! (Texas is about 49 x 53 inches) California is about 31 x 52)

As you can see, the New England state are going to have to buddy up.

[ October 02, 2001: Message edited by: Dave Draper ]

Thanks for your interest and replies. Im forming a list of those who are interested to help.

I was talking to Jeff Wooten, editor of Sign Builder Illustrated yesterday on the phone. He was asking questions about Coop's Banner Across America. We filled him in on the two projects organized so far, the TY2K barrel and Baby Doll.

He is preparing for a writer to do an article or a dispatch for the magazine. It might be our own sweet Adrienne Morgan who gets the job....lets hope so.

Anyway, this project is on his mind too!

There is an underlying symbolism here in the "united we stand" theme. If 50 letterheads can independent make a piece of a map so that it fit perfectly together with the rest of the pieces, we have achieved something very very unique and different!

50 shops, 50 seperate pieces, forming one banner and when its done...it all fits together.

I think we can do it! (without cheating)

[ October 04, 2001: Message edited by: Dave Draper ]

With the quilt idea you could make a header banner (say 4x30) and attach the "area banners" to it.
Example-- 4x30 header ... 2/3x6 individuals attached ... if more than just the 50 states participated you could fit 5 across and keep running them down ... find a nearby football field at an internationl meet to put them together and end up with one heck of a banner.

Love the idea of bunches of mini-meets to get to that point.
Bruce let me know what beer to bring

Sure a square collection of squares is a logistical piece of cake, but the end result is not as worthwhile. Not that it wouldn't be cool just not cool enough to scrap Dave's idea.

Here's a few half-baked thoughts to try getting to solving logistics on Dave's idea.

Just brainstormin' as I post, but has anyone ever seen that series of books titled something like "A Day in California" (or was it just LA ?)Anyway dozens of photographers around the state were coordinated to participate in a syncronised pictorial documentary of city or state. Then a coffee table book was created, which had the appeal to the reader of knowing every photo was shot on one day.

50 small regional meets would be held. Of course individual logistics would reduce the total number of participants, but each state meet would design & produce 1 design that fits the size & profile of their state. Instead of 10 different independent "signings" a design that represents the state & the specific talents of the artists present. The work becomes 3D almost as a muralist might do some background, Hand lettering here, airbrush highlights there, gilding (can you do that on a banner?)Even the design phase would be a group therapy experiment, followed by building up layers of different mediums. I see drying time as one problem among many others... so back to the drawing board.

How about a virtual collage banner of works from around the country either created digitally, or by submitting scans of hand lettering, painting, airbrushing, etc. then files are re-sized & collaged into profile of each state by that states representitive. Dave, you can get a super computer and put all 50 virtual banners into one file to have output to banner stock on a large format digital printer.

Oh well, maybe a quilts the way to go.

[ October 05, 2001: Message edited by: Doug Allan ]

In clarification, I thought one person from each state should be in charge of getting as many signatures from sign shops in his state.

We may not be able to come up with one person from each state to be responsible...so a team leader mave have to be responsible for several near by states.

I like the idea of indvidual states (except for the small New England states) seperately cut out from a file that I send to the team leaders.

If they follow the instructions to the letter, the map will fit together like a jig saw puzzel and will be perfect! That is the challenge.

Are we good enough to pull it off? Will we fail?
Can that many team leaders be found, and work together in the spirit of "UNITED WE STAND"?

Will this take all winter to work out the hitches?
Probably! Count on it!