One of the best field trips our design class took in 1969 was to the Foster & Kleiser Outdoor Advertising production facility on the south side of Chicago. There we learned that Foster & Kleiser’s billboards began life in-house where advertising agency art was transformed into full-sized billboards. The art was transferred to strips of Kraft paper where the shapes and forms were delineated by pounce wheels. The Kraft paper strips were then arranged on the full-size media where workers would “trace” the pounce shapes with bags of blue chalk. This gave the painters the direction they needed to apply the correct color in the correct area. The finished display would then be transported to the billboard location and installed.
The above photo is one that I took on the Outer Drive in Chicago. I was amazed to find that the rendering that we design students would have created in chalk and Prismacolor pencils was actually composed with one-inch brush strokes. Very much like the Seurat “Grande Jatte” on display at the Chicago Art Institute, the work became a coherent whole when appreciated from a distance.
Foster & Kleiser is now part of Clear Channel Communications. I don’t know if they use the same techniques today.
Very interesting! I never gave much thought to how these were made.
I certainly have a greater appreciation for this kind of artwork now…
For about the last 15-20 years billboards have been output from files on a ‘grande format’ printer, printing onto a scrim vinyl. It works kind of like a very large inkjet printer, with very large paper.
I did a billboard back in the mid-90’s and remember how foreign it was to me after having done years of regular print production work. As noted by the OP, the resolutions (low) used and sizes of the dots that make up the pictures (like Le Grand Jatte) were absolutely huge. Viewed close up, it looked awful to my eye. When viewed from the side of the road, it looked great.
In my neck of the woods (SW MI), digital billboards are becoming very popular. They’re like the Jumbotrons you see in sports stadiums. In fact, they’re starting to crowd out the traditional ones and while I can’t imagine what the price premium is to run an ad on one, but it must be worth it to the advertisers.
I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone paste a billboard, with the strips of paper as described in the OP. With the advent of the grande format printers and the weather proof substrates (plus the much easier installation), that would be one method that should fall by the wayside.
Having been trained as a commercial artist, I do mourn the passing of the craft, but can’t argue against the advancement of the technology. For the most part it’s made our lives safer (from nasty chemicals) and cleaner all the way around.
Digital costs less in the long run, however gaudy they may be. Less risk and cost than having a person install the printed sheets. Would prefer to see neither!
Digiboards are becoming popular in the populated areas of the South as well, especially given the climate is easier on the mechanicals. Most of the rural areas are still peppered with print style boards simply due to cost. I watched a guy once about 8 years ago put up a bill board and it came in like 4 rolls and it was applied like wall paper just had to be VERY careful everything was lined up properly.
Clear Channel? The only skill they seem to have is laying people off.
Foster & Kleiser was the object of a leveraged buy-out in the mid-1980s…it was re-christened Patrick Media Group and was quickly sunk by its debt. ClearChannel bought it up; I believe there was an intermediary step because Patrick was gone before ClearChannel came to be.