A Banner Day

TW and I have been collaborating on a fun project - we're making 4 banners for the California College of the Arts to use in their Commencement ceremony in early May. We're both alumni, as well as TW being a professor there, so it makes for a special project for both of us.

There's one banner for each school within the College - Fine Arts; Design; Architecture; and Humanities & Sciences. They'll hang from an "L" shaped pole and will be carried in front of the groups of graduating seniors from each of the schools in the Commencement procession.

Plain fabric is being screen printed by TW, and then sewn into the banners by me. We found a drapery lining fabric that's coated on one side with a lightweight insulation layer that makes a surprisingly perfect choice for the project. It's sews easily, but it's quite opaque and has a nice drape to it. The bottom hem of each banner will have gold fringe across it to give some extra weight to them, and grommets along one side will be used to attache the banner to the vertical pole to keep it from swaying too much.

We did a bunch of scribbling and figuring; it took some time to figure out what sort of poles we would make and how the banners would hang from the poles, etc. (We're doing the fabrication for that part, too.)




Once we had the design and the materials, TW cut the panels and printed them, first with the seal of the College in gold, and then with black for the lettering. Meanwhile, I made a life-size sample banner to work out the construction kinks.





As of tonight we've gotten all the printing done and the sample banner is done. TW will get the poles from an aluminium supply tomorrow and get them assembled and painted over the next week, and I'll do the actual banner sewing next weekend. It's great fun to collaborate with my sweetheart!