Commissioned by branding agency Intermarketing Retail for sports fashion brand Adidas, the project required six installation teams, the use of 28 signage effects, and 270 individual elements to create a series widely recognised as breaking the boundaries of signage innovation.

Ltd Limited also revealed Intermarketing Retail chose the firm to create Adidas window displays, to coincide with the Olympics for the flagship London outlets of Stella McCartney, Lillywhites, O2 Arena, John Lewis, and a number of Adidas Performance stores.

“We don’t just print on media, we combine media to create effects that are new and unique,” enthuses director of Ltd Limited Seymour Reeves, adding: “Ten years ago our core team went out fast and hard when a lot of other companies were battling over costs and who could get the best client. We just stuck to our guns and consistently produced work that was more creative and inventive than anything else out there. The single most important thing today is that we don’t believe there are other businesses that compete with us in this area.”

Intermarketing Retail sent Ltd Limited 2D graphics, which they adapted and extrapolated into 3D CAD drawings before creating a series of mock-ups and prototypes for each project.



Reeves continues: “You really have to understand how the medias effect each other. When you combine things like plastics, multiple finishes and polyesters they can fail so easily. We found this out the hard way over long experience and today are confident in the knowledge we know how to treat each and every one in combination to create the perfect illusion.”

Ltd Limited used a huge number of media from different suppliers for the project, seeing vinyls from 3M, Avery, MacTac, and Metamark all pressed into service to achieve different effects. The company has also invested in an impressive array of wide-format kit from the likes of  Mimaki, Epson, and Canon, using several machines from each supplier. Reeves explains the reason for this is that to achieve the very best results for each and every effect, in this case 28, a specific printer and media combination has to be used.

He says: “You have to understand the limitations of the different vinyl technology and what printers and inks suit them best. This approach is how we built the company, by taking a diverse approach to every job and being able to achieve what is apparently impossible. We want to achieve exactly what a designer wants, not a compromised cut off version.”

Reeves highlights the Adidas commission has generated a lot of referred work and seen it win the contract to brand a new exhibition for the launch of the latest in the James Bond series, counselling that this profile boost is one of the major benefits of this type of work.

“The project was profitable in itself, but not the most profitable work we do. When you have to create perfect mock ups and the project is evolving right up till its finished to exacting requirements, then it is difficult to price accurately,” he adds.

The 16 different window displays celebrated Team GB sporting heroes such as Jessica Ennis, Laura Trott, Tom Daley, and Victoria Pendleton. Each montage used contrasting technologies to create the special effects. The list included theatre gels for ambient lighting, motorised CAD/CAM cut outs to mirror reflected multiple transparencies, strobe lighting, lenticular printing, specialist opalescent and pearlescent films, and specialist LED systems.

Perhaps the most impressive and difficult window was the Laura Trott display. This involved Ltd Limited splitting an image of the double gold medallist into five progressively opaque layers before printing to vinyl applied to five millimetre perfect acrylic cut outs—creating the illusion of real motion in the window.

Added to this was the set creation of a velodrome, with a freeze frame explosion effect modelled using 3D CAD systems, and the separate gluing together of hundreds of pieces of solid wood—creating the illusion that Trott was literally tearing up the track behind her.

Reeves comments the company’s mission was to make the displays as, ‘close to real life as possible’, a goal it seems to have achieved admirably.
 

                                              Ltd Limited in pictures