Nearly four decades without their own sign, Media 1/Wrap This makes up for lost time.
营业近40年之久的标识公司却始终没有自己的专属标牌，是一件非常滑稽的事情。名为Media 1/Wrap的公司就面临这样的现状，不过他们最近终于决定制作一面能够代表自身最高生产力的标牌，弥补浪费的时间。
IN 1984, I WAS 16 and had just started this little sign company in my mom’s garage in Oviedo, FL. I was hand-lettering, airbrushing and doing custom paint-work on boats, cars, motorcycles, etc. Vinyl plotters were just making their industry debut, and silk-screening was the only way to produce multiple sign orders efficiently.
1984年，来自佛罗里达州奥维耶多市的戴尔·萨拉马查刚满16岁，也就是在这一年他在母亲的车库里创办了Media 1/Wrap——一家在当时来说真正意义上的小型标识公司。公司创立伊始，萨拉马查所能接到的业务无非是在船、汽车和摩托车之类的交通工具上进行手工刻字、喷漆和定制喷漆。那一年，乙烯基绘图机刚刚在标识行业中亮相，而丝网印刷仍然同时作业多个标识订单的唯一有效的方法。
Movin’ and Groovin’
计划开始
Boy, a whole lot has changed over those 37 years, right? Technology exploded on the scene with better, faster ways to create amazing signage, and we have done our best over the years to stay ahead of the curve, striving to always have the latest and greatest equipment available. But beyond technology and equipment upgrades, what else does a growing sign company need?
37年过去，萨拉马查——曾经的男孩发现，很多事情都悄然发生出剧变——技术的爆炸式发展让标识从业者们以越来越好、越来越快的方式创造出惊人的标牌。多年来，萨拉马查为Media 1/Wrap的发展倾尽全力，将其做大做强，并保持在行业内的领先地位，力争始终拥有最新、最先进的设备。但是另一个问题也不得不思考：除了对技术和设备的升级之外，一家成长中的标识公司还需要什么东西呢？
Space. That’s right, space. After all, you can’t run a successful company out of your mom’s garage forever, so by the time I was 19, I had rented my own 1,200-sq.-ft. shop. Two years later, I moved to a 2,400-sq.-ft. space. The mid-’90s took me to a 6,000-sq.-ft. warehouse, and by 2004, Rick Ream was my partner, and we never thought we’d outgrow our massive 10,000-sq.-ft. building. We eventually expanded to 20,000 sq. ft. by taking over an adjoining space, and then as you may have read last year, we finally bought our very own place … a beautiful, fully air-conditioned, 30,000-sq.-ft. behemoth on 2.5 pristine acres!
首先进入萨拉马查脑海的是：“空间”。毕竟，成功的标识公司无法永远开设在母亲的车库中。于是在公司成立的三年后，也就是萨拉马查19岁时，他搬迁至租用的一间111平米的店铺中；两年后，又搬到两倍于此面积的地方；90年代中期，Media 1/Wrap已经占地超过550㎡，有了自己的内部仓库；到了2004年，在萨拉马查和他的搭档里克·里姆的筹措下，公司搬入近930平米的庞大面积建筑中，在公司业务水平进一步发展后，又接管了相邻的办公用地，扩大至1860㎡。
终于在去年，萨拉马查终于摆脱了作为一名租户的困扰，购买了一个专属于Media 1/Wrap公司的空间——这是一个美丽的，装有空调的，办公面积将近3000㎡，总占地超过10000平米的庞然大物！
This list is to illustrate how many locations in which we have plied our trade for nearly four decades. Shockingly, beside some window graphics, a DIBOND panel from years ago, and one 5 x 10-ft. pan face in a shared pylon structure, we have never, I mean never, had our own sign. For real. A sign company with no appreciable sign! We’d been taking flack on that for years, and I, for one, finally got sick of it!
以上这段略显冗长的描述并不多余，这是为了说明Media 1/Wrap公司在近四十年的时间里换了多少办公地点，从而体现出会令人感到荒唐的一个事实：除了一些窗口图形，还有几年前的一些非正式的宣传铝塑板，以及在与他人共享的标识塔架上摇摇晃晃的1.5m×3m的面板之外，这家标识公司从来没有过真正意义上属于自己并且非常明显的标牌！多年来，包括萨拉马查在内的公司员工们一直对此不屑一顾，但终于，萨拉马查意识到了这一点，并且决心改变！
After a few attempts at some in-house designs, I ran them past my wife, Christy, the Supreme Designer of our home, our personal car wraps, and our beautiful shop offices. My Pinterest Princess took one look at our designs, shot them down, and started sending me photos of signs from all over the world that she felt were more in line with our capabilities. (Well, we might as well make it a statement piece, after all those sign-less years!)
萨拉马查首先在公司内部征集出一些标识设计，然后交给被他戏称为“家中最具权威设计师”、“家用汽车包装与最美办公室创造者”的妻子克里斯蒂进行选择与最后拍板。但克里斯蒂常年关注着Pinterest——一个高质量照片分享网站，因此审美层次非常高，她毫不留情地将萨拉马查给她的设计样板全部否决了。
随后，克里斯蒂为萨拉马查在网络上找了很多来自全世界的标识照片，看起来都非常高端，她觉得这些设计才更符合Media 1/Wrap公司当前的设计与制作能力。萨拉马查在考虑后，也觉得应当对多年来的第一个正式标识有所要求。
Sign Us Up
树立标识
The traffic on the street in front of our new building runs mostly one way, with not much coming from the other direction, so we opted for a single-sided sign, angled for the perfect road view.
Media 1/Wrap新办公地点的门前就是一条主干道，但是这条道路的绝大部分车流量都来自同一个方向，反方向的车流量则不多，因此萨拉马查与公司的伙伴们选择了一个单面标识的设计，同时为了获得最佳的道路能见度增加了特殊倾角。
We started with seven 2-ft.-wide, fuselage-shaped aluminum columns spaced 2 ft. apart, at varying heights for the backdrop of the sign. Our team painted them with Matthews Brushed Aluminum, matte finish. The individual columns (or “robots,” as lead fabricator Steve Pass calls them) were individually mounted in a first pour of concrete, toward the back of our 12 x 3 x 2-ft.-deep footer. After that partial pour locked them in, we removed the plywood forms holding everything in place, and did a second concrete pour the next day, to leave a smooth base, sitting 8 in. proud of grade.
正式的建筑工作从7个0.6m宽的长方体铝柱开始，7个高度参差的铝柱分为前排3个后排4个，同排铝柱之间的间隔为0.6m，以此构成整个标牌的背景。项目团队为铝柱涂上马修斯牌拉丝铝磨砂漆。各个立柱（项目团队领导者史蒂夫·帕斯称呼它们为“机器人”）被植入进第一层混凝土中，3.6m×0.9m×0.6m的整体造型已初具雏形。
一次浇筑将铝柱牢牢固定后，团队将用于定位的胶合板模板取下，并在第二天就进行第二次混凝土浇筑，制作出标牌底部的基座。这个高度0.2m的基座让整个标牌看起来非常气派。
8 in. in front of the columns, we installed a 12-ft.-long x 2-ft.-tall aluminum base with custom-rounded ends, angled back 45°. We then painted the base with high-gloss Matthews black. The base also features ¾-in. clear acrylic push-through lettering reading, ‘WRAP THIS.’ Our fabricators backed the acrylic with white 3M Envision Diffuser Film, and translucent colors on the faces. Inside the base, we backed the letters with bright white HanleyLED Phoenix PF-2030 Mini LED Sign Modules.
而在铝柱前0.2m处，团队安装了一个长3.6m高0.6m的铝制底座，该底座带有定制的圆角末端，向后倾斜45°，然后使用马修斯高光泽漆将其涂成黑色。底座表面上还嵌入47.5px厚的透明亚克力发光字“WRAP THIS”。供应商为这些亚克力额外提供白色3M Envision扩散膜，以及表面半透明的色彩。光源和照明集成在底座内部，团队用明亮的白色HanleyLED Phoenix PF-2030迷你LED标牌模组对亚克力字母进行支持。
Next up, we turned to our awesome ChannelBender SXP from our friends at SDS Automation to fabricate 2.5-in.-deep ‘MEDIA 1’ letters, using SDS’s proprietary “trimless” channel letter return material, making unique, clean and modern letters with no plastic trimcap. HanleyLED Phoenix PF-2080 LEDs handled the channel letter lighting, and we attached the letters to the top of the base with 1-in. aluminum tubes on the letter backs.
接下来，项目团队联系SDS Automation的老朋友，在那里利用非常厉害的SXP槽型字弯管机以及SDS专有的“无边”槽型字材料，制作出158.75px厚度的“MEDIA 1”文字，以及独特、干净且现代的表面装饰。在光源上，同样选择了HanleyLED Phoenix系列但型号为PF-2080的LED模组负责发光字的照明。所有发光字通过背面62.5px的铝管固定在底座的顶部。
We finished the install with two 48-in. Everylite RGB Wall Washers set behind the base, splashing a flood of controllable color onto our columns, with secondary copy in ½-in. Type 1. Christy is happy with it, so, of course all of us are happy with it!
在底座的后面，项目团队安装了两个1.2m的EveryLite RGB洗墙灯，能够控制任意颜色喷洒在铝柱上，并且在很小的间隔中叠加两层色彩。克里斯蒂对这个设计感到很满意，当然，以萨拉马查为首的所有MEDIA 1/Wrap公司员工都对这面标识感到满意！
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