The Banner Blog

Banner Creations, Inc. won the 2007 IFAI Outstanding Achievement award for our banner work on the Avant Storefront in the Minneapolis MN skyway system.

It was designed by Chad Hancock of Design Reaction for Duffy and Partners and implemented by Banner Creations, Inc.

The banners create privacy without being totally closed and yet makes the space visually pleasing to both the customers inside and the pedestrians in the high traffic skyway system.

Additional photos from this and other awards can be viewed in our Photo Gallery.

The InStore Marketing Expo 2007 was a great success! The interests generated from the guests were geared toward eco-friendly products and services. Many thanked us for leading the push to include marketing and advertising with recycled materials.

Congratulations to the following winners of the Autographed books by Anne Bancroft:

Barb B. of St Louis MO
Leah A. of Klamath Falls OR
Wayne W. of Overland Pk KS

Update: Class has been moved to Spring Quarter.

Nora Norby, president of Banner Creations, and Bruce Wright, editor of Fabric Architecture magazine, are hosting a workshop on Fabric Structures and Printing Methods through The University of Minnesota College of Design (CDes). Download the Information and Registration PDF to learn more.

0708 Hands-On: Banners, Sunshades & Fabric Structures
1 session, 3.5 Hrs AIA-HSW; .875 IDP Units; $105; $95 CC
Includes a light meal

Explore a variety of interior/exterior banners, screens and architectural graphics created with fabric as you learn about sources and properties of industrial materials, printing, and construction techniques. This workshop includes in-shop demonstrations with the newest “green” products including recycled and up-cycled fabrics, and safer low-VOC inks.

Inspiring examples of the international design and assembly of larger fabric structures, screens and sunshades will also be shown. Nora Norby, MFC, an expert in textile printing and finishing, will explain the basics of different fabrics and printing methods and direct tours and printing demonstrations at Banner Creations. Bruce N. Wright, AIA, editor of Fabric Architecture magazine, will present the latest in industrial fabrics, sunshades and fabric structures.

Location: Banner Creations Inc., 1620 Central Ave., Suite 151, Minneapolis, 612-871-1015

The In-Store Marketing Expo will be held in Chicago IL on Sept 26-27, 2007. This year’s event will combine the In-Store Marketing Expo and the Total Retail Experience (TREX). Merging these shows promises to deliver an even greater audience to exhibiting companies, a broader, more compelling offer to attendees, and a more affordable and practical opportunity to all within the industry.

Banner Creations will be traveling there to display the newest in eco-friendly and recycled fabrics for retail displays. RFID integration with fabric products will also be highlighted. Come visit us to see how you can carry your company’s recycling mission through to point of purchase displays!

Come visit us with at Booth #120. We will have daily drawings for autographed books by explorers Anne Bancroft and Will Steger.

Call 1-800-326-3524 for your free passes to the show!

From October 7 — 20, Denver will host an Urban Forest Project. Banner Creations, Inc. is donating all 48 banners for this event.

The Urban Forest Project is a unique design exhibition featuring the work of over 40 designers and students from all over Colorado. Planned to coincide with the AIGA National Design Conference, it will showcase the talent and enthusiasm Colorado has for design and put it on display for the 3,000+ attendees of the conference. At the same time, it will shine a light on sustainable design issues as well as raise money for Colorado design education initiatives.

Banner Creations has donated the 48 banners for this project which will utilize Ecophab™. Ecophab™ is made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. After the banners have hung they will be made into tote bags — similar to The Green Bag — and sold on the UFP web site as a fundraiser for Colorado design education initiatives. By using recycled fabric and up-cycling the banners into bags, the project will have a very minimal environmental footprint.

For more information on this event please go to http://www.denverurbanforest.com/ or call Banner Creations at 1.800.326.3524. Visit our main site on the web at http://www.bannercreations.com/.

Last week on NPR’s Science Friday, hosted by Ira Flatow, they had a segment devoted to plastics and recycling. Our president Nora Norby couldn’t resist and called in to contribute to the conversation. In case you want to listen to Friday’s show the podcast link and details on this segment are on NPR’s web site at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11954271.

Nora comes in at around 18 minutes into the podcast and gives the panelists and radio/internet audience a brief primer on some of Banner’s green efforts, up-cycling, and our Ecophab™ product which is made entirely from 100% recycled soda pop bottles.

She discussed some of the challenges with getting clients to choose a more environmentally friendly fabric in their product. However, she noted that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s 2006 State Fair Eco Experience Exhibit took a big step in the right direction by using Ecophab™ in most of their displays.

One of the panelists, Nicole F. Smith, affirmed Nora’s frustrations with the current state of demand for environmentally friendly fabric products and congratulated her on Banner’s efforts in this area. Nicole was optimistic about the future of eco-friendly products, such as Ecophab™, and noted that a national infrastructure needs to be developed to make better use of these soda bottles, or “technical nutrients” as she described them.

We agree!

Welcome to the Banner Blog. We have the system up and a draft post ready to go. Stay tuned!!