I am pretty decent at modifying or tweaking photos and such, but straight up creation work is not something that I am good at.

I was wondering if someone with a little more talent would be willing to create an image for me.

I ordered some acoustical insulation panels (Owens Corning 703) today, and I will have 4 panels on each wall, and one on the rear wall. That one on the rear wall I want to have custom printed fabric put on it as my new sign for my theater.

There is a whole thread on AVS about this place that will print things up for you using a material that has proved to work with acoustical panels. A lot of people are making acoustical panels that look like movie posters (somehow getting around the copyright thing). I don't plan to do that, but like I said would like something for my rear wall.

That panel will be 24 inches tall x 48 inches wide on the face. That is where the main wording should go. Then the image needs to extend another 6 inches top/bottom/left/right as the panel will be 4 inches deep from the wall, and adds another 1/2" of thickness to each side (beveled so the image should still fit in the 24" x 48" space).

That means a total size of 36" tall x 60" wide with the main lettering within the middle 24" x 48". The fabric place likes 150 dpi minimum.

The theater has been dubbed "The Starlight Theatre" (notice the 're' and not 'er' in theatre) since my very first home theater years and years ago due to always having some sort of star ceiling.

I just want to update the look of my sign and at the same time use it for decor over an acoustical panel.

Here is the original sign in the photo from pre-V4.0 construction. It is black plastic with "sticker" type decals and gold frame done up at a local sign shop. It looks a bit dated.



I am a cheap sun-of-a-gun, but could probably find something to barter with for the time. I am sure that I could find some quality trinket reflective of the state of Iowa if nothing else.

Obviously I don't expect some massive 50MB or greater file. Although if you make one, you can post a smaller image of it here and I can give you a spot online (FTP account to my web space) to put a full sized file.

So let's see your creativity. Looking for something simple and clean with colors that would go with different shades of browns, deep (really deep) burgundy, or deep blue even (since it is "sky" like and the night sky is dark). Lettering or any design element shouldn't be "too fine" or too similar in color since this is going to get printed on fabric and contrast will help as will a little more "thickness" to any words/elements.

nick for something the size your wanting to print. you're gonna way 300-350dpi.. Also, depending on how creative you want the image to be, something that size in a TIFF is gonna be pretty freaking big man.. Several hundred megs depending.

When i print 16X20" photos, those images are around 300megs. Or so... Granted those are photos, with a lot more going on.. But, you get the idea.

I know what you are saying, but they are saying that due to the nature of it being printed on fabric and not on a truly solid surface, you can't print 300+ dpi anyway. They can accept it, but it will just look closer to 150 dpi when done, again due to the nature of fabric having threads and holes that you can see.

EDIT: OK. According to their website (spoonflower.com):


With their yards at 42" wide I will need to get 2 yards (won't use it all) to get a piece 42" x 72" using just the 36" x 60" middle of that.

EDIT2: So I opened up Photoshop and just saved a 36" x 60" image of nothing as a TIFF (since TIFF isn't compressed, it would give me the final file size no matter what I put in it). It came to 139MB at 150 dpi since that seems to be what they can print at. Since I am limited to a file size of 40 MB, I would have to do some level of compression.

FYI. I just ordered a full size yard of their Kona Cotton fabric with the 1400 color swatches and color codes that I can get the exact colors I want in the end. Will take about 2 weeks to get here though. Won't stop the creativity though as I could do a color swap if need be.

Do you want a monochromatic file, that you can then order as a solid color or gray tone, or do you want something with multiple colors?

Also, will these panels be vertically or horizontally oriented?

At this point I am only doing one panel with this fabric, although I may decide to do something complimentary for the 8 side wall panels. "The Starlight Theatre" panel I am mainly focusing on is wide, and not tall. So more horizontal than vertical. The wall panels are a little smaller at 2'x3' instead of the 2'x4' and the wall ones are only 2" thick instead of 4" thick and vertical instead of horizontal. If I find a nice design for the back wall, I may carry over the design somehow to the side walls. It will cost me about $85 for fully custom wall panel fabric vs. $35 or so for something stock that will be "close enough."

As for colors, I guess I don't want a whole rainbow or anything. My first thought was a set or stars (real vs. graphical 5-point) with a "The Starlight Theatre" words in the foreground. That would be a limited color palette, but again, I am looking to you Axiomites for some inspiration and talent so I am open to ideas.

Here is a quick "mock up" image that I did with MSPaint (all I have at my disposal on this computer).



I am not saying to use this at all for the design. This was something I used to explain what I was doing on the AVS thread about printed fabric.

The dimensions don't take into account the 1/2" wide material used for the frames or that the fabric needs to wrap around the back to be attached.

Just to add to my post count and geek factor. For those wondering how printed fabric can possibly be acoustically transparent enough to work for acoustical panels, here are some graphs. Credit goes to mtbdudex from AVSForums for the research, graphs, and conclusion.

Midrange with Spoonflower Kona cotton cloth, baseline and @ 0, 45, 60 degrees


Tweeter with Spoonflower Kona cotton cloth, baseline and @ 0, 45, 60 degrees


Conclusion from the midrange/tweeter charts: Spoonflower Kona cotton cloth is AT and good to go for acoustic absorber panels usage.

And for even more posts and eye candy....
Here are some examples of what others did with their acoustical panels... Note: they all consistantly stated that the images got washed out when taking the photo, but they aren't washed out in person.

Part 2

Absolutely very cool.

And, yeah, copyright doesn't seem to bother anyone.

How much is the printing, per panel?

1 yard of material is $18 plus a couple of bucks for shipping. Shipping stays about the same for about 10 or so yards, plus you start getting discounts after 3 yards. Basically, I was looking at 7 yards to do 8 panels (2'x3'). Total was like $85 which is like $12 per yard or $10.60ish per panel (qty8 panels)

Nick. i have a question man...


Can i get the Room SPL graphs with an audyssey mic and a Mac? is there any software for the mac? Or, an iphone app?

That is a good question. I've never created the graphs like I copied/linked above. I am also not a Mac/iAnything guy, so I don't have one to play around with.

Room EQ Wizard at Home Theater Shack?

Good call. I've always wanted to get REW and spend time graphing my room. I've heard that some people are using their cell phones and apps to get SPL readings. Not as accurate as a true meter, but fairly decent.

Nobody??

I'll be getting back from vacation in CA in a couple days. I can't promise I'll be inspired enough to attempt something, but I intend to try.

Nick, I'm sorry but I'm likely out of the running. I had company here this whole past week and now I'll be backed up in my work for the next two weeks to make up for it!

I stared at a blank canvas in Adobe Illustrator for a bit and felt uninspired, so I tried some obvious stuff first. They all resulted in digital paper crumpling. I'm not feeling particularly inspired and wouldn't want to sully your walls with my amateur attempts.

OK. Any Adobe Illustrator artists here?

I think that it is the best program to use to create either an .AI or .EPS file that can be resized.

Well, here is the image that my wife wants to replicate in digital form. It is basically circles that are black, silver, and gold (with slightly "brushed" texture for each color).

I have Illustrator (CS6) as part of the Adobe Master Collection, but I am terrible at using it to create things. I seem OK at editing existing stuff though. Can anyone create this in Illustrator?

Nick, now this I can do. Took me less than 10 minutes.



Here's a link to the .ai file.

The file has two layers. The "orig. photo" layer contains the picture you posted. I used it to get the circle arrangement in teh second "rings" layer as accurate as I could. (The camera lens distorted the circles slightly, especially toward the right and left edges.) The orig. photo layer is currently hidden. Just click the eyeball column in the layer palette to show it and check my accuracy.

Awesome. I think that this will be more flexible than a photo. Now I need to pick out exact colors for the rings that are close to the metal, but still look OK in the room, the background color, and sizes needed in order to get 3 panels out of this. At least I have the circles matched up to start with. Thanks so much.