The Banner Blog

Recycling, conservation, sustainability…

Those are words and concepts very familiar to our president Nora Norby which have been put to use by her since the Carter administration. That’s the main idea in a recent spotlight article on Nora in the March 2008 edition of Specialty Fabrics Review magazine. In the interview with SFR she discusses the current state of green integration with BCI’s business operations, past efforts, and plans for the future.

SF Review asked…

Industry Prediction
“In 5 to 10 years I expect to see more people using green fabrics, and less people using solvent printing.”

Business Philosophy
“I like making a product that to me has value and makes people feel good–providing good products at fair prices while being good to our employees and to our customers.”

Secret to Success
“Perseverance. That’s probably the thing I do more than anything else. If you want to say I’m successful … it’s just hanging in and trying to not take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Greatest Challenge
“The ongoing challenge in regards to moving things in the direction of sustainability is the sourcing of materials and information. Beyond that, it’s finding and keeping good employees.”

Download the article to read more!

Our friends from the Will Steger Foundation sent us a photo of the Ellesmere Island team, posing with one of the banners we made for their expedition. The banner is made into an eco-friendly and lightweight material called Ecophab™ which is processed from recycled soda pop bottles.

If our banners can survive weather in the Arctic circle then we’re sure they’ll endure for your business needs!

Toby Thorleifsson (Norway – age 28), Ben Horton (US – age 25), Sam Branson (Great Britain – age 22), Will Steger (US), Eric McNair-Landry (Canada – age 22), Sigrid Ekran (Norway – age 28), Sarah McNair-Landry (Canada – age 21)

About the Expedition

Last March, six emerging leaders, ages 21-28, joined Will Steger on a 1,400 mile international dogsled expedition across Ellesmere Island. There they followed in the footsteps of legendary polar explorers and will visit ice shelves that have collapsed due to global warming and those that are on the brink of collapse. Crossing fjords, mountain ranges, and sea ice, the Expedition Team will record the impact global warming has had on the northern coast of the third largest and northernmost island in the Canadian Arctic.

Follow their progress at globalwarming101.com.

We wanted to share more photos of the Denver Urban Forest banners. Once deployed a colorful and design-rich banner makes a strong impression on your target market. You can also see larger photos of these and other customer banners in the photo gallery on our site. To view more info on the Denver Urban Forest Project please visit their website.

Banner Creations will take part in the 2008 ISA International Sign Expo as an educator in the digital imaging track. Attendees will learn about the science of fabric selection for digital imaging projects.

The ISA offers educational opportunities to today’s sign industry professionals. Join us for interactive forums, hands-on workshops and seminars covering digital imaging, legislative regulations, technical industry application, management and sales and marketing.

DIS-10
Date: 3/27/2008 Time: 2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Title: Choose Fabric – Expand Your Market
Presenter Name(s): Dan Sinto, John Boyle & Company; Nora Norby, Banner Creations
Track: Digital Imaging
Description: Fabrics, inks and equipment have converged to create explosive opportunities in today’s growing graphic market. Combining graphics with fabric is the new innovative solution to project designs. The hottest trends in the fabric and graphics industry point to huge business opportunities for business owners. This seminar will provide tools and resources necessary to be successful in today’s competitive fabric graphics marketplace.

Participants will:
* Identify characteristics and types of fabric necessary to select the best fabric
* Examine specific uses of fabric to maximize the understanding of the benefits of fabric
* Learn the fabric equation (fiber plus yarn plus finish equals fabric) to assist in the decision process of selecting the fabric.

Further details and registration information can be found at http://www.signexpo.org/Education.html

See you there!!

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!