Gettysburg College Centennial Conference Championship Hallway Design

Client

Gettysburg College

Services

Project coordination
Photo editing
Graphic environmental design

Deliverables

Wall installation

The Challenge

Gettysburg College’s athletic department came to Graphcom with a relatively simple goal in mind for this project. They wanted to showcase the incredible amount of Centennial Conference Championships that their various athletic teams had amassed over the years, and while doing so, they hoped to spruce up a 160-foot long hallway in their athletic building. In addition, they were hoping to produce it in a way that would make it easy to add additional years & teams – for all their future championships. Sounds reasonable enough… but how does one go about preparing for the largest single-wall installation in our company’s history? And how do you produce photos (of varying levels of quality) from the past 40 years on a 9′ x 160′ long hallway?

The Solution

As lead designer on the project, I began by providing a 60 ft sample of the design of the hallway. The layout of the wall allowed for six “featured” images, to be displayed in full-color and at a much larger size. These images were selected based on quality and resolution. Meanwhile, photos with lower resolution and quality could appear at a smaller size and with duotones and halftones applied, to help mask any potential pixelation once produced.

This project had many “mini obstacles” along the way – the need to design around wall plaques that couldn’t be removed, accounting for doorways, a stairway, and a handrail… not to mention the 5° ramp. But ultimately, the final product is one for the books. The installation was successful, and included seven acrylic boards with the list of athletic teams and years. Three of those boards are currently empty and can be easily removed and printed on for all future championship celebrations.