working with vinyl

transparent vinyl banner covered in facebook and twitter

My choice of medium for the presention of my senior thesis was vinyl. I had no idea it would be such a hard material to work with. Vinyl cling is not meant to hang, it is used to spruce up a window in a restaurant, gas station, etc. The printer warned me that it might curl once it has been hung, but that was the least of my worries once I tried to position the figures on the banners. As my professor Leslie Jensen-Inman put it, “it is like a vinyl sandwich.” Pretty much. It was very difficult to align the figures just right so as not to have an outline around a figure coming from the back of the figure on the other side of the transparent banner (they were printed on opaque vinyl).

In order to attach a figure to the vinyl, I had to:

squeegeeing surface of the vinyl banner

spray the vinyl banner with water

attach one figureand position in place

re-wet the entire banner

squeegee the surface, making sure to rid the banner of air bubbles

repeat process on opposite side of banner