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Custom-shape and freestanding lightboxes in Procura 100mm extrusion
Custom-shape lightboxes and freestanding backlit units built for Community and Veev. Both use Procura 100mm aluminium extrusion carrying tensioned backlit fabric graphics, a build that keeps the illuminated face clean edge to edge and lets the graphic itself be changed without touching the structure.
What the job demanded
The moment a lightbox stops being a rectangle, even illumination gets difficult. LED arrays are laid out on a grid; a curve, a notch or an angled return puts parts of the face further from the light than others, and the eye picks up the difference long before any instrument would. Corners are the usual failure point, along with any place the fabric has to turn a radius and wants to pull away from the frame. Freestanding units carry a second set of constraints, because nothing is fixed to the building. Stability has to come from the base and the section depth, cable runs have to be hidden, and the back of the unit is on show as much as the front.
How it was produced
Procura 100mm extrusion gives a frame 100 millimetres deep, and that depth is doing real work: it puts distance between the LEDs and the face so light spreads and overlaps before it reaches the fabric, which is what removes hot spots and lamp lines. The graphic is a silicone edge system. A silicone bead is sewn around the perimeter of the printed fabric and pressed into a machined groove in the extrusion, which tensions the print drum-flat and hides the frame behind the image, so there is no border overlapping the artwork. Custom shapes were built by cutting and joining the profile to the required outline, with the fabric patterned to match. Backlit fabric is printed to a different density curve than front-lit work, because ink read through transmitted light behaves nothing like ink read off a surface.
