Winners Celebrate Best of Wide Format Awards at ISA Sign Expo

BIG PICTURE’S ANNUAL Best of Wide Format awards are all about recognizing the work itself, but the anecdotes and personal stories behind it are often just as intriguing. Hosted at the magazine’s booth on April 14, the second day of the annual International Sign Association (ISA) tradeshow at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, this year’s awards ceremony offered a chance for attendees to hear these stories and converse with the winners directly over a beer or a wine.

In one particularly moving acceptance speech, Jonathan Simpson, VP of Simpson’s Printing, revealed that he lost family in the massive South Dakota flood commemorated by the graphics his company printed for a local museum exhibit commemorating the tragic event. On a lighter note, Lindsay Theisen of Just Fab Graphics described how a winning truck wrap with different colors on each side led some locals to think the company had wrapped more than one vehicle. Derek Atchley of Atchley Graphics faced a bit of awkwardness in navigating concerns that the blue, Corona-themed graphics installed at the Ohio State University would be too close to the shades generally associated with archrival Michigan.

In fact, all but two of the 12 honorees were on hand to share stories about their award-winning work, which ranged from photo-realistic, lenticular murals to plane wraps to graphics that cover entire stadiums. In partnership with ISA and sponsored by Durst, Fujifilm, Roland, and Trotec, Big Picture’s Best of Wide Format Awards honored the following PSPs:

• A3 Visual | a3visual.com
• Atchley Graphics | atchleygraphics.com
• Color Reflections | colorreflections.com
• ER2 Image Group | er2image.com
• Direct Edge | directedgeinc.com
• Gamut Media | gamutmedia.net
• Ink Monstr | inkmonstr.com
• Just Fab Graphics | facebook.com/justfabgraphics
• Performance Wraps | performancewraps.com

Big Picture will solicit submissions for the 2024 awards early next year. Nominations must encompass a specific wide-format printing project or campaign completed any time after March 2023. The winning projects will appear in Big Picture’s March/April 2024 issue and will be recognized during ISA Sign Expo in Orlando.

PHOTO GALLERY (10 IMAGES)