Creating a Colossal Can

As a major sponsor of the new Salt River Fields Spring Training facility in Scottsdale, Arizona –home to Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies, and the first such facility built on Native American land – soda-giant Pepsi wanted to make a place for itself with a lounge-style party deck. The rightfully named Pepsi Patio would be the largest patio in the park.

To add to the playful nature of the party deck, Pepsi’s sports agency Genesco contracted with bluemedia to create a larger-than-life, to-scale can of Pepsi Max “to maintain their status and reflect Pepsi’s ‘massive’ appeal,” says Eric Rutin, bluemedia’s director of marketing and sales.

Pepsi supplied the logo graphics, and left the rest of the can’s design to bluemedia, which used Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to produce the wrap design to the proper dimensions. Meanwhile, the structural design for the can itself was created using CorelDraw X5.

“Our structural team built the can entirely of aluminum, using their geometry skills to determine accurate dimensions, a high-pressure water jet to cut the pieces, and a tube bender to mold it into the perfect shape,” says Rutin. Then, for the finishing touch, an orbital sander was used for non-directional sanding to the exposed aluminum on the top of the can, which gave the aluminum a clean, raw look. “A water jetter was used for the top of the can for the writing. The water jetter uses high pressure water to cut through material with accuracy.”

To print the 24-square-foot graphic, the shop turned to its HP Scitex Turbojet with HP TJ100 ink, outputting onto 3M Controltac Graphic Film IJ 380– printing in three sections, each 28-inches wide. A 3M 8518G laminate was applied with a GBC Professional laminator.

“Making the graphics and structure look like a can was our biggest challenge next to the placement and sizing of the graphics,” says Rutin. The giant, lifelike can took only two hours to create and the Pepsi patio took two and a half days to complete. “The entire patio is clad in Pepsi décor, including textured wall and floor graphics, to mention a few, all of which bluemedia created,” says Rutin.