In mid-January of 2017 I was contacted by a French Design Group out of a Paris called “Studio L'Imprimerie” for a project called “Inside Out.” They were searching for a company to fabricate a custom billboard and erect it in the middle of the desert for the staging of an international artist called “JR” also based out of France. 

The concept of the project was to erect a billboard shaped like a real, specific mountain located in a small town called “Trona” off of the 395 hwy. which runs North & South along the California/Nevada line. 

This billboard would sit approximately .25 miles in front of the mountain however; the mountain peaks of the billboard had to line up EXACTLY to the real shape of the mountain, which was .25 miles behind the billboard. 

Following the artist “JR’s” application of graphics which was a black & white digital print to paper then adhered to the aluminum billboard by way of a “wheat pasting process”. 

Following this segment of the project a rock band called Arcade Fire Music out of Canada promoted by Maverick Productions would be then filming and recording a music video in front of this billboard. The music video will be released in September of 2017 at which point we will post the release on our web site for viewing. 

This project was EXTREMELY challenging because the location was literally in the middle of the desert with no electricity or running water.

The ground was full of sand type dirt, shrubs and cactuses.  Our job was to take the clients original design and strengthen it into a billboard that could sustain the winds and elements WITHOUT digging in the ground! The billboard was 21’ high X 52’ wide and 15’ deep weighing approximately 12,000 pounds. The key was to level the ground so that when the billboard was erected it would line up exact to the mountain behind it. If off by an inch … we would be in trouble!

From 2/6 through 2/15 we went back & forth with the design and engineering plans. From 2/16 through 2/27 we fabricated this billboard with a select crew of seven. On Monday (2/27) we sent ahead a crew of three along with myself to manually level the ground. A huge undertaking since heavy equipment of this level was not an option at this location in the desert. On Tuesday, (2/28) our remaining crew of four caravanned out to the desert with RV’s and a flatbed holding all billboard components semi-assembled. Sending our entire crew with RV’s & equipment we erected this monster of a billboard with 12” steel beams in 3 days. Most importantly … the billboard was in alignment EXACTLY to the mountain! 

The project was a huge success and I believe that the “team” of Custom Sign Manufacturing are truly some of the very best in our industry. If you can dream it …. We can design, fabricate and install it! No project is too much. No project is impossible. No vision should go un-tapped!