Custom Wall Art for Chicago's Moody Bible Institute

“When we started going through the building, it was in the progress of being built. We were walking through spaces, trying to imagine where to display art. We worked from floor plans to figure out placement.” Last year Lynn Gabalec, Art Director and Marketing Communications at Moody Bible Institute, and Rhonda AuYeung, Production Manager, reached out to us to work with them to create custom wall art and displays for Moody Publisher's and Moody Radio's new home. What we ended up making was branded wall art beyond anything we had produced in the past.

“Through our history of working with Artmill, we knew the quality of the work we received from them in the past.” Lynn headed the charge on our collaborative project for their new Chapman Center. One goal Lynn and Rhonda worked with us to accomplish was to utilize whole walls for large-scale art. They sought a variety of means of displaying the Moody Bible Institute’s rich heritage, providing century-old photos to turn into large-scale vinyl wall covers. “We wanted a bold way to occupy the space with a historic nod to the past.”

In order to transform the images from 8” x 10” photos into almost 8’ x 13’ adhesive vinyl panels, we first had to scan and edit the original photos. Upon reviewing the scans, it was clear there had been some “old time photoshopping” at play. One of our experts, Ben, advised on this process of cleaning up the photo scans in order to print them at a larger size, “The original photos looked like they were retouched in the 1940s with sharpie or black nail polish.”

The wall adhesive of the wagon was composed of three large, self-adhesive vinyl prints that required multiple seams. This ensured our installers could overlap it panel by panel to make sure the final wall art looked seamless. The vinyl wall covering was a natural choice because it was capable of highlighting Moody’s history through the use of existing photos turned into large-scale art.

In addition to the large format vinyl prints, we also created an Acrylic Facemount of the current Moody Bible Institute logo that now lives on the first floor lobby of the Chapman Center. We developed several iterations before Lynn and Rhonda decided on the 50.5” wide oval logo with Tru-Life Acrylic and vibrant colors. Rhonda expressed how the final product worked perfectly with their vision. “We thought, ‘what can we do that’s different to make our logo stand out?’ I feel like it’s much better than we could have imagined.”

We also custom framed sixteen black and white prints showcasing the evolution of the Moody logo since 1934. This became a large gallery wall featuring the year to year evolution of Moody Publishing’s logo. The 20” x 20” black frames were paired with white mats and installed as a gallery wall in two long rows. Lynn stated, “The logo wall provided a clean, uniform was to present that piece of history.”

“Artmill is always a pleasure to work with and went out of their way to meet a tight deadline. I love how the wall images and displays turned out.” Lynn spoke high praise for our partnership and the work we'e done for the Moody Bible Institute. Rhonda was similarly impressed by the finished products. "I was impressed and blown away by the grand size of vinyl wall pieces and the quality of the retouched images. They are beautiful and are a hit with the residents of the building."