News
As the third busiest airport in the World, Heathrow Airport was the ideal location to showcase Turkish Airlines worldwide coverage through an iconic structure. Signs Express (Basildon) was on hand to help provide the finishing touches on what was to become their largest ever project.
Turkish Airlines flies to over 98 countries and 200 locations, the most of any airline in the World and so were looking for a memorable representation of the leading brand for the high profile location. A large globe structure was made from 16 individual pieces and once put together, was suspended by a 7.5t steel plinth, with a massive 6.5m diameter. Working in partnership with Fab Media, who organised all of the ground works, Signs Express (Basildon) applied graphics to each piece, signifying the longitude and latitude points of the World. Due to the size of the structure, only one piece at a time was available to the production team; meaning that graphics needed to be perfectly aligned when they were installed as owner Tony Surface explains, 'Each piece of the globe is literally the size of a house and so the sheer scale of the graphics was something we had never undertaken before. It was very important to ensure the all the lines would align once they put the globe together at Heathrow Airport. Thankfully our attention to detail paid off as each segment's graphics perfectly matched the other.' Signs Express (Basildon) was also called on to add detailing to the five Boeing 777 planes which adorn the globe. Each aeroplane has over a 2m wingspan and needed to faithfully represent the branding of Turkish Airlines. Installed surrounding the globe is lettering spelling a number of the destinations available to fly via Turkish Airlines which was also completed by Signs Express (Basildon). Illuminated for maximum night time visibility, passengers coming into the airport see high profile destinations available from Heathrow and incoming visitors then see a different set of destinations when they are leaving the airport terminal. Tony continued, 'We were really excited to work on a project of this magnitude and seeing the finished effect of the structure now it is fully installed gives me great pride in the work undertaken by my team.' Signs Express (Basildon) was also on hand to provide large scale advertising hoardings with full colour digital printed graphics, which curved around the installation area. The entire project took over 3500 man hours to complete and will be seen by millions in the years to come.