Banner screw-up

Christine amidst her Fun-A-Day pennants.

Christine just finished a car lot-style banner for Pittsburgh’s Fun-A-Day 2015. The banner, made up of 31 textile flags and pennants, will be hung from the gallery ceiling during the Fun-A-Day show in February.

Detail of Fun-A-Day car lot banner.

Fun-A-Day is a multi-city event in which artists create art for an entire month and then display it together in a gallery. Christine went as literal as she could, sewing the word “FUN” once for every day of the month. The resulting riot of typefaces and textiles is greater than the sum of its parts.

Fun fonts on these Fun-A-Day flags.

In the Pittsburgh area? Here’s show details:

Fun-A-Day Pittsburgh
Mr Roboto Project, 5106 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, PA
Opening reception: Friday, February 6, 2015, 7pm-10pm
Saturday, February 7, 2015, hours TBD
Sunday, February 8, 2015, hours TBD

Planning a party remotely can be perilous. My parents’ 50th anniversary was being celebrated in Vancouver, but I was doing all the preparations from my studio in Toronto.

I created a banner for my mom and dad’s party, which I would normally do with a trusted local printer.Â But because I was flying,Â I used on-line printing company Vistaprint and had them ship the finished banner to my parents’ house.

I wasn’t pleased with the customer experience: too small maximum upload size, no FTP option, and several pages of “buy this design on a mug” options to wade through before you can place the order. But the convenience seemed worth it.

When I arrived at their house, I could tell right away the tube was too small. I unrolled the banner to find that Vistaprint had sent me a banner for some sort of food bank charity event.

Vistaprint has apologized and refunded my money:

I am very sorry to learn that you have received the incorrect banner. I can understand your disappointment since it is an important part of the decorations for your parents wedding anniversary. I assure you that this is not a typical Vistaprint experience . . .

. . . Please feel free to dispose of the incorrect banner at your convenience . . .

. . . Again, I truly apologize for any inconvenience caused and look forward to assisting you in the future.

The lesson to take from all this? Find a local printer you like and use them for any work you deem important!