Wesley College, a private school in Perth, WA, is celebrating 100-year anniversary this year and wanted some ways they could represent the milestone around the college. The school’s Director of Communications, Mary Henry and Manager of Communications, Richard Ryan, invited Anthony Nixon from Kwik Kopy Perth to investigate some signage possibilities.
“They had some ideas of what they wanted but weren’t sure if they were feasible,” Anthony says. Some of their requests included large signage on the walls of the college and large format photographs from the past century in key places around the school, such as the glass walkway to the science centre.
The signage on the walls was not a challenge for the Kwik Kopy team. It could be produced with printed vinyl and router-cut aluminium composite panels, which are sturdy but lightweight. Such signage is regularly produced inhouse at Kwik Kopy. A second challenge was producing the school’s visual history on the windows of the walkway. This was achieved with printed window frosting, giving the impression of etched glass but at less cost. They also used vinyl cut prints.
But the impossible request came from Rodney Steet, the school’s Head of Boarding. He had a photograph of four boarders going home for the holidays that was taken in 1929. It was an evocative illustration of the past—with all the problems associated with old photographs.
Any printer will tell you it’s very difficult to make a small photo big—the way the image is constructed means an enlarged print will look grainy and indistinct. The original photo was tiny, about 10cm wide. But they wanted it to be printed onto windows in the main reception area of the boarding house.
Penny Benson, creative director at Kwik Kopy Perth, came up with the solution. “She worked with the team to present the idea of a creative dot pattern to the images and saturated colour,” Anthony explains. “We had the idea to put it on the windows but to do that we had to create a pattern and colour in the image so it would no longer be pixelated.
“We did several rounds of art ideas and several round of tests on the windows to see how the colours would come up. Finally, we decided to print on window frosting in saturated colour and allow the sunlight behind to show through ... and show the story and original pic on a story board next to it.”
The motto of Wesley College is Audendo Atque Agendo, or ‘By daring & by doing’—one that could be applied to the Kwik Kopy Perth team, who dared to take on the challenge of bringing the school’s history to life, and did it with style. P