Mural for Roger Penske Racing Museum
Phoenix, Arizona
SOUND AND FURY
20' x 10' mural in situ
Penske Racing Museum, Phoenix, AZ
The story
One day at Vertis around quittin' time, our Account Executive in charge of Automotive Accounts dropped in to ask for a quick favor. He dumped an envelope full of old 8"x10" glossies on my desk and said he needed me to turn these around in a hurry into a 20-foot x 10-foot mural for the new Roger Penske Racing Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. It was to be installed on a curving wall above the grand staircase, so my idea was to make it in a grid of fifty 2-x 2-foot panels. I was marginally familiar with Roger Penske's racing career and that there was a chain of oil & lube shops bearing his famous name. I was told that he's a billionaire with an ego to match, and that the mural was to glorify his career from the early stock car days to his Formula One championships.
Ok, good enough. By the time I left that evening, I had created my mess-terpiece.
I was right! Penske loved it, and ordered it produced in our Large Format shop post-haste, without a single revision, which prompted the suits at Vertis to climb aboard the Prager bandwagon themselves. What's more, Penske ordered a second, wider version, 34 feet x 10 feet, to be used as a stage backdrop behind his on-stage lectures and presentations. A third, suitable-for-framing version was also produced, presented to Roger Penske, and hangs behind his desk.
Ok, good enough. By the time I left that evening, I had created my mess-terpiece.
The next morning, when I presented it to the powers that be, I got a lot of quizzical looks. I explained to them that I designed the piece to evoke the roar and smell of auto racing, and that I didn't expect them to fully grasp it until they saw it full size, to scale and in situ. Still skeptical, I predicted that the only two people guaranteed to "get" it were me and Mr. Penske himself.
I was right! Penske loved it, and ordered it produced in our Large Format shop post-haste, without a single revision, which prompted the suits at Vertis to climb aboard the Prager bandwagon themselves. What's more, Penske ordered a second, wider version, 34 feet x 10 feet, to be used as a stage backdrop behind his on-stage lectures and presentations. A third, suitable-for-framing version was also produced, presented to Roger Penske, and hangs behind his desk.
20' x 10' version designed to be installed in 2' x 2' panels
Clockwise from bottom: Vertis' Director of Creative Services; myself; one of my Jr. Art Directors; Vertis' Penske Account Exec
The wider 34' x 10' version, produced in five movable panels, used as a backdrop behind Penske's on-stage lectures and presentations.
Chicago Ballroom mural
Not long after producing the Penske piece, and having gained some notoriety with the top brass at Vertis HQ in Baltimore, I was asked from on high to make something similar for a big bash they were putting on in Chicago. Here's what I threw together, which was used as a backdrop in a huge ballroom for the event.
Other architectural-scale murals I produced at Vertis were some long hallways for the Creative wing at our Irvine plant, which I didn't get a chance to document, dog gone it!, and the 1/2 mile square construction barriers for the Century Plaza complex in Century City, below.
Construction barrier graphics wrap ½ mile Century City site for two years, to educate and excite community about major entertainment/office park construction. Printed on 10’ Cooley fire retardant Coolflex vinyl, with UV Vutek inks.
Aerial view of proposed site In Century City, Los Angeles – some of the most expensive real estate in the world
Trammell Crow was to demolish one of the most prominent development complexes in Century City, CA -- the ABC Entertainment Center, including the old Shubert Theater -- and replace it with a new complex called Century Park. Some of the existing components of the older complex, the twin 30-story Century Plaza Towers, were to remain open and functional during the two-year construction of the newer components. The two-square-block construction site was to be fenced off during the process.
Trammell Crow came to Vertis as a one-stop solution to their design problem. Vertis is a leader in large format printing. Vertis also has creative capabilities. Vertis’ task was to design graphics for the site’s construction barriers, and then print and implement the installation.
AVENUE OF THE STARS barrier
10 feet in height, multi-textured messaging speaks to audience on foot, driving by in traffic, even from surrounding offices
Intended audience
Prospective tenants; current tenants of Towers; current workforce; Century City community at large; national and international corporate community, especially within the entertainment industry sector.
How the piece piece reaches the intended audience
Walk- by; drive-by; view from existing plaza and Towers; backdrop behind media events/talking heads.
Prospective tenants; current tenants of Towers; current workforce; Century City community at large; national and international corporate community, especially within the entertainment industry sector.
How the piece piece reaches the intended audience
Walk- by; drive-by; view from existing plaza and Towers; backdrop behind media events/talking heads.
CONSTELLATION BLVD barrier
The piece works on many levels, and communicates multiple messages.
The main message is to prospective tenants. This is going to be one of the most prime office spaces in the world, especially for the entertainment industry. Those potential tenants will need to be enthused with the prospect of all the amenities the complex will offer -- from state-of-the-art architecture to open spaces, from shopping to entertaining, from high finance to high culture.
A secondary message is to current tenants. Two 30-story towers full of tenants will have to put up with the construction-zone atmosphere for an extended period of time. Trammell Crow needs to promise them a reason to stay — that they will be part of an amazing new endeavor if they could stick it out for two years. Also, any effort made to mitigate the unsightly nature of a construction zone can only help. Office workers walking to work or eating their lunch in the plaza will appreciate being surrounded, at the very least, by attractive graphics conveying informative messages, while they wait out the big payoff of the beautiful new buildings, amenities and open spaces coming soon.
A third message is to the community at large. Century City is one of the most beautiful (and expensive) business districts in the world. Wrapping the site in an attractive manner is a major responsibility that the developer owes the public at large. The community also needs to be informed that there are many new amenities available to them soon. Restaurants, retail, nightlife, public greenspace and meeting places, even a museum will add much to the community. The public needs to know.
A fourth message is to the national and international corporate community. The graphics serves as a backdrop for media events broadcast from the site, such as Governor Schwarzeneggar's grounmdbreaking ceremony, as the anticipatory fever reaches a pitch before the complex’s opening in 2007.
The environmental nature of the piece also works on many levels. It needs to communicate on a macro scale to motorists driving by at 45 miles per hour, and to executives peering out of their corporate tower windows 30 stories above. At the same time, it has to communicate with foot traffic as close as a foot or two. This was achieved by a rich multi-layering of textures and messages of varying size, impact and opacities.
I was most gratified the day I went to shoot photos of the finished installation: When explaining to folks – who were curious why I was shooting pictures of the wall behind them – that I was the designer, they almost always said “nice job!” and a few even thanked me!
