Through the 'Stained' Looking Glass

The Client: First Fellowship Baptist Church, Norcross, Georgia

The Players: SpeedPro Imaging, Atlanta

Tools & Supplies: Roland XC-540 Pro Jet III, Avery MPI 2077 Calendered Clear inkjet vinyl, Roland eco-solvent ink.

The Job: Before the First Fellowship Baptist Church in Norcross, Georgia, welcomed parishioners into its new daycare and classroom facility adjacent to the traditional sanctuary, pastor C. Edward Odom wanted to be sure the windows connecting the two buildings made an impact on his congregation every time they walked through the door.
He was looking at the suite next door to SpeedPro’s office as a potential location for the church one afternoon when he noticed some window graphics in SpeedPro’s entryway. Odom stopped in to inquire about the graphics, and SpeedPro had the job. In quick order, SpeedPro production manager Phil Rogers crafted a plan for incorporating the church’s logo into a design that used clear vinyl to create a stained-glass effect on the 12 x 5-foot windows, and Odom was thrilled.

Production: Using artwork supplied by the church, Rogers set to work finalizing the graphics. He enhanced the multi-colored logo with a light, crystallized texture in Adobe PhotoShop to give it a luminous appearance, then added “hard, black lines” to emulate the lead channels found in traditional stained glasswork.
SpeedPro then turned to its Roland XC-540 Pro Jet III and Roland eco-solvent inks to output the image onto Avery MPI 2077 Calendered Clear inkjet vinyl. Rogers chose to print directly onto clear vinyl, rather than pre-printing white behind the clear, he says, because he needed light to shine through the image. Limited by the 54-inch output of his printer, he printed two sections for each window and tiled them in the middle. After the install, which was applied wet to ensure a smooth finish and prevent surface bubbling, the overlap was trimmed out.

All told, says Rogers, it was an easy project to produce, with a total print time of about 45 minutes and less than three hours to install. And the best part, he says, is that it allowed his shop to test out a process for re-creating stained glass that he stumbled upon by accident a few years ago.

“The colors were kind of dull [on a previous project], but with dark black lines, and when we saw it hanging with light coming through, we all thought, ‘Hey, that looks like stained glass!’”

In addition to the church, SpeedPro Imaging has reproduced the same technique for a number of other facilities, including a Florida pizza shop that wanted to give diners an old-world feel.

“It’s a really bright print. I blew out the contrast on the colors and printed on clear vinyl with no primer, so the glass really reflects the light and the whole image comes across the floor of the church just like stained glass.”

SPEEDPRO IMAGING
www.speedproatlanta.com