22 SportsTurf | July 2015 www.sportsturfonline.com
A
fter 20 plus years of paint-
ing logos for sporting games
and special events, I have
reinvented myself and my
techniques several times.
At first I went by the "Guess and By
Golly" method where I would look
at a drawing and paint marks, con-
nect them and create a letter or logo.
Most of them were deemed too small
and detailed for recognizable visual
impact. Then I started projecting
the image with an opaque projector
on a paper woven mesh (Saxolin X,
recyclable paper netting used to cover
chip filled railroad cars), which is
distributed to landscapers for erosion
projects. I noticed that they would
measure and paint dots to create a
planting pattern using different colors
indicating which plant went where.
Being made of a woven brown wax
coated paper, it retained the paint.
But then I had to relay it on the grass
by simply repainting on the paper
pattern, which was hard to do with
straight lines.
There are some simple techniques
I have used over the years depend-
ing on what works best at the time
or what I have available. In the old
days, school opaque projectors were
used to manipulate the desired image
onto a wall that required moving the
projector back and forth to fit the size
needed. Sometimes your images might
not be sharp. Nowadays with the new
computer technologies you can hook
up your laptop to an LCD projector
and have options to zoom or keystone
the image without having to move
anything.
You might think a 10-foot image
is big, but once it is laid out onto a
field it is dwarfed by the large amount
of grass you want to paint. Also for
you to project an image large enough
you need to have a taller wall such
as in a gym or warehouse, requiring
ladders and the ability to darken the
room to be able to see the projected
image. Once the image size has been
projected, you can hang a sheet of
visqueen, or what I prefer, a poly tarp
with grommets. By carefully cutting
half-moons on the straight and curved
lines you will create a usable pattern to
spray dots in the exposed cutouts.
Poly tarps come in a variety of sizes,
colors and thicknesses. I like white
which because it is easier to mark. If
the logo is only used a couple of times,
I go with a thinner mil, but it is bigger.
LOGO CREATION 101
FACILITY & OPERATIONS
■ BY MIKE HEBRARD
