Building Wraps Soar Above London

All eyes in Westminster, London’s Leicester Square were on blowUp media when the team arrived to install two 2800-square-foot building wraps on the Coventry Street corner. The wraps were commissioned as a temporary façade for 18 months during construction of LSQLondon, a 109,000-square-foot retail and office space. A prominent entertainment district, Leicester Square was the subject of a $22-million renovation in 2012, and the orchestrators of LSQLondon were not about to spoil its newfound elegance.

“Our clients recognized the high-profile location of this building project and wanted to make sure the work had as little impact as possible on the environment,” says Steven Tokaya, development director at blowUp media’s UK office.

Out-of-home provider and self-described inventor of the “Giant Poster,” blowUp media operates on one belief from its 300-plus locations: Bigger is better. “Giant Posters generate a more emotional response,” says Tokaya. “They cut through the media clutter, giving brands the visibility to stand out.”

And the two wraps – accompanied by a previously installed 525-foot Dibond barricade – were sure to do just that. Emblazoned with several enormous birds designed by Scottish artist Kenny Hunter, the graphics were designed to bring a sense of inspiration to the project. The building’s former inhabitant, the Automobile Association (AA), served as a muse for the design: “Kenny saw the AA as a company that gave people opportunities to travel, to escape, to spread their wings.”

The graphics were printed on an HP Scitex XP5300 UV printer by a fabricator partner; the shop used 440-gsm Star Flex PVC banner material.

A team of five to eight installers worked during strictly regulated hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. to avoid rush-hour traffic; Tokaya says getting the correct permits and the right people in the right place at the right time was the project’s major challenge. BlowUp media turned the entire project around in just two weeks – half of that was devoted to the installation phase.

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