At the St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, there is a program that provides family and friends the opportunity to give gifts in remembrance of loved ones. St. Luke’s came to Presentations for a donor wall to recognize those donations. The St. Luke’s Hospital anticipated that they would be changing their logo shortly after this project was completed; therefore, any logos on the display needed to be easily updated when necessary. Since the new donor wall would be placed near the large cumulative digital donor display, the esthetics of the two designs needed to coordinate and stay within the budget.
The Wall of Remembrance, originally called Heart Spaces, blends nicely with the digital donor display. To ease the transition, a similar photo was used for the backgrounds, as well as the same fonts and wood as the previous display. However, no lights were used for the Wall of Remembrance in order to keep the project on budget. The wall can also be updated annually with the use of sandwich Plexiglas panels to house the donor listing. In addition, the logo was places on a separate plaque that can be easily replaced when a new logo has been selected.
St. Luke’s Wall of Remembrance completes the space while recognizes the gifts in remembrance of loved ones lost.
The Benton Community School District contacted Presentations to create three dedication plaques for various buildings. Gary Zittergruen, the Benton CSD Superintendent, spotted a plaque previously done by Presentations for the Cedar Rapids Community School District sparking his interest in a similar design.
Presentations created two dedication plaques based on the CRCSD design. Mounted on Plexiglas with standoffs to differentiate the mascot from the rest of the plaque, the addition of the school’s bobcat mascot to the donor plaques makes it distinctive to the school and adds dimension to the display.
Designed to stand up to the outdoor elements at the Bobcat Stadium, another plaque was fabricated from bronze for the Benton Community School District.
The biggest challenge for this project was getting a high enough resolution photo or vectored image of the mascot. It is beneficial to save the vectored images for any logos you may want to print later in order to retain image clarity. At the end of this project Presentations was able to provide Benton CSD with a high quality file of their bobcat mascot.
Benton Community School District can now show their pride with three beautiful dedication pieces.
A donor display now recognizes those who gave to the renovation and build campaigns of the “Tree of Five Seasons.” It is because of the community’s support that a city icon, which was created in 1996 and damaged during the flood of 2008, can still stand tall. To recognize this spirit and commitment the city has placed a recognition stand to identify 145 local families and businesses who donated to the renovation project, raising $405,000 and includes a $100,000 endowment for regular maintenance.
The challenges to this donor display was knowing it needed to be freestanding, endure the elements of the Midwest and identify hundreds of names all within a small footprint. A simple sleek design was created using one piece of 1/2″ stainless steel bent and curved to to resemble elements of the sculpture. Attached to this base is a donor plaque at a standing height and angled for easy reading. Because of the large quantity of donor names a zinc process was used instead of a traditional bronze plaque which allows finer details and better readability.
This recognition display is a perfect fit into the space of the “Tree of Five Seasons”, stands together as a reminder of the spirit of Cedar Rapids and displays the community’s commitment to this landmark.
Presentations is proud to have created a donor recognition piece which is on display 24 hours a day in the community we work and live in.
The Big Horn County Historical Society Museum needed to recognize their donors with a donor wall to fit their space and themed around their identity. The museum contacted Presentations to help produce a donor wall they designed and visioned.
The challenge to this donor wall design was the multiple layering that incorporated photographed images of the mountains. Each peak of the mountain represents one of the six donor giving levels. In total the donor wall has seven different layers all individually cut and mounted together. This creates about 4 inches of depth to the donor recognition wall. Images are printed on pieces of Plexiglas and then adding a dividing layer. Once completed the donor wall was shipped to Montana and easily hung using the cleat system as recommended by Presentations.
The Big Horn County Historical Society Museum now has a beautiful donor wall that reflects their organization and thanks their donors in an artistic way.
The Linn-Mar School Foundation strengthens its community by partnering with businesses and individuals to raise, steward, and distribute funds, thereby enhancing educational excellence for present and future Linn-Mar students. With the goals to recognize both the “Beyond” endowment and “Annual” donors while reflecting the mission of the organization and speaking to the Linn-Mar community, the Linn-Mar School Foundation chose Presentations to design their donor wall.
The design is influenced by the Linn-Mar School Foundation logo and the lion mascot. The geometric logo and colors are brought in to the layout as a way to divide the wall into different sections and donor levels. The donor wall also serves to help educate about the foundation, using the mission statement and key words. Seven giving levels are identified on their own aluminum sections with larger lettering to emphasize the higher donation levels.
In the early stages of the donor wall Linn-Mar struggled to decide on the proper location. (You can read more about this debate in a previous post, “Does Location Matter?”) The Linn-Mar donor wall now hangs in the Linn-Mar High School. One concern with this location was durability and how the donor wall would hold up to high school tampering. To protect the individual lettering a clear piece of Plexiglas covers each aluminum panel, which can still be removed for easy donor updates. The annual section is a print that gets sandwiched between the Plexiglas and aluminum as a cost effective way for yearly changes. Finally, the lion is incorporated as the background element to emphasize the title and theme of this donor wall. Not to be the focus, the lion stands behind the panels with pride as a way to show thanks and belonging towards this organization.
The result is a donor wall that reflects the Linn-Mar School Foundation’s goals and gives them a relevant presence in a space that they can now be proud to stand by and update for years to come.
