Smart business owners know the value of well-designed signs. They capture the customer's attention, provide the first impression and communicate the type of business. Sign Gallery 7 offers a wide ...
Cima Network and Custom Finishers outfit a signature Regal property.
By Steve Aust
With increasing competition from diverse outlets, theaters must increase their efforts to boost their audiences. Regal Cinemas (Knoxville, TN) took such a step with its opening of Regal Premium Experience (RPX™), a surround-sound, high-definition theater setting, for its Times Square location. Cima Network (Ft. Washington, PA), a sign-design and project-management firm, developed the project, which incorporates an original concept from JKR Partners, a Philadelphia-based, architectural firm. Bill Lockett, Cima’s president, said “Regal’s goal was to wow customers. In Times Square, you have to grab attention.”
The most imposing challenge with designing and fabrication that 6 ft. 6 in.-tall letters involved forming them to the theater’s compound-curved walls. To ensure proper placement, Cima and Custom Finishers, which assumed fabrication duties, took wall measurements and built a full-size, template using Sintra® composite material. To ensure a flush mount, Lockett’s team rendered them using Google’s Sketch-Up 3-D software and checked them against a simulated, plywood wall.
Customer Finishers’ channel letters comprise 0.125-in.-thick aluminum painted with Matthews metallic-silver, acrylic-polyurethane coating – except the internally illuminated section of the “X”, which features push-through acrylic with frosted vinyl that’s illuminated by 1.25-in.-wide iColor Flex LMX flexible, RGB LED node strands. Flanking the primary sign, columns features 3/16-in.-thick, clear Lexan® polycarbonate lenses that are illuminated with iColor Flex nodes. The “pill-shaped” sign comprises routed acrylic coated with push-through copy vinyl copy. Strands of iColor Flex also project from above the letters to the overhead soffit.
Cima and Custom Finishers turned around the project in four weeks – in time for the grand opening of the latest blockbuster, Iron Man 2. Soon, the companies will develop similar RPX signage for other Regal locations.
Did you enjoy this article? Click here to subscribe to the magazine.