SpeedPro East Bay Declared Winner of Coveted 2019 Project of the Year Award

SpeedPro East Bay was announced as the 2019 winner of the SpeedPro Project of the Year with the “Highland Hospital History Wall” project at Highland Hospital, a renowned regional trauma center in Oakland, Calif. The award-winning project required custom graphic, high-quality wall murals with layers to showcase the hospital’s rich history in a high foot traffic emergency department corridor.

Wendy Jung, the owner of graphic design firm Jung Design, recommended SpeedPro East Bay as a preferred printing and install partner based on past project experience. Originally, the project was to create digital displays, which was ultimately scrapped due to budgetary constraints. Together, Jung and SpeedPro developed an alternative project proposal of large-size wall murals on two corridor walls, each measuring 31-feet long by 9-feet tall which required no structural change to the walls or additional power or data infrastructure to support digital displays, all while staying within budget.

“The design and decision-making process took several months,” said Nicole Verduzco at SpeedPro East Bay. “We needed to have buy-in from all hospital stakeholders for the final proof, which required months of providing samples and mockups. We were honored to be able to support the hospital’s decision-making process and consult with our collective creative design, printing and installation expertise.”

To capture Highland Hospital’s history as a one-time nursing school and recognize nurses who worked there in years past, multiple building remodels, the Spanish architecture, and the nearby healing gardens and landscape in the project design, Jung and the SpeedPro designers needed to incorporate low-quality, vintage 1930s archival photographs and turn them into large-scale wall murals. Partnering with a high-quality scanner who could scan at 24,000 dpi and higher, the team digitized the photographs that could be scaled up 80 times. 

The SpeedPro team recommended using PVC-free wall vinyl with a matte laminate, which would protect the vinyl from wear-and-tear of the emergency corridor’s foot traffic, finger oils and bumps or scratches from passing hospital beds. Additionally, the project required 32 acrylic panel graphics to better project the murals. SpeedPro East Bay reverse printed the images on vinyl and wet-applied the graphics to the acrylic panel’s backside, safely showcasing the images’ rich color and detail.

Once the images were printed, the SpeedPro East Bay team layered colored panels behind the images to add depth and an extra dimension to the design. Additionally, floating caption-text descriptions were added to the layers for each image within the murals. The murals and layering were secured with metal standoffs. 

“Once we received the green light from the hospital for the project, Jung and the SpeedPro team moved quickly to limit any disruption the installation could have on the essential corridor and completed the project within just five hours," Verduzco said. "As hospitals are the front lines of defense for our community today, we’re proud of what we were able to accomplish for the Highland Hospital staff and patients and are thankful for being awarded the 2019 Project of the Year award.

“As with many ambitious and large-size projects, choosing and consulting with a professional graphics provider and installer as early in a project as possible is essential to a worry-free installation and a very appreciative client like Highland Hospital.”