2008-09-01 00:00:00
It’s already a fact that Sweden will take a part of a gold medal at the Peking Olympics. Big Image was commissioned by the International Olympic Committee to print flags and the Olympic logo on sails for all boats in the laser class.
This is the second time that Big Image has printed all the sails for the laser class boats for the Olympic Games, and security surrounding the project was rigorous.
”We were bound to keep it a secret when we printed the respective sails,” says Andreas Skantze, CEO of Big Image. The agreement also included the stipulation that no one internally would wager on the winners in Peking.
For the Olympics in Athens the company printed 50 sails, this time Big Image printed twice as many at their facility in Täby outside of Stockholm.
“It is, of course, a great honor for us to produce something that will be seen in competition at the Olympic Games,” says Andreas Skantze. “This assignment solidifies our place as a supplier of the world’s most advanced printing solutions for sails. Actually, we are alone in the world when it comes to this type of printing.”
Swedish Olympic participant Rasmus Mygren and his competitors use sails that are nearly four meters high. The sail was manufactured by Hyde Sails and printed with BopJet, a technique developed by Big Image.
“For Athens we printed on lasercut panels before the sail were sewn together, but this time we printed directly to the sail, which was quite a bit more technically difficult since the sail is three dimensional and has a shape. We enjoy the challenge of working with advanced, complex and exclusive assignments, and this one certainly fit that bill,” says Skantze.
Up until the Athens games the sails for the laser class were hand painted. There are many advantages of Big Image’s digital printing techniques.
“Regulations regarding the weight of a sail are unyielding, and with our solution the weight difference between the sails are so small that there is no need to correct overall. In addition, the colors are more durable than on a hand painted sail,” Skantze concluded.