Adding logos to ice sculptures

by Matthew | 13 April 2012 3:57 pm

By Jerry Fireman
For several years running, La Bodega Tapas Bar and Grill in Regina has commissioned an annual ‘ice bar’ to be sculpted on its outdoor patio. This winter tradition is part of an effort to raise money for Regina Transition House, a local emergency shelter that helps women and children affected by violence.

By way of example, the ice bar built for the 2010/2011 season was assembled using 40 blocks of ice and weighed some 5,443 kg (12,000 lb). It was functional from the last week of November 2010 until the third week of March 2011.

The ice bars are built by Peter Fogarty of Fire and Ice Creations in Saskatoon. His first in 2007 required 10 days of work, as he manually designed, cut and assembled the structure with logos representing 10 corporate sponsors. It took four days to design the logos by hand, four more days to cut the pieces of the bar and two days to assemble it all together.

Since then, however, technology has made the work go more quickly. In 2010, using computer-aided design/manufacturing (CAD/CAM) software and a computer numerical control (CNC) ice router, Fogarty designed and cut 20 logos for a much more complex ice-bar structure in just seven days. This period included two days to design and position the logos, four days to cut the blocks of ice and less than a day to assemble the bar on-site.

“The software greatly reduces the amount of time required to size, position and produce a mirror image of each logo,” he explains. “This is required because the logos are cut out of the back of the ice blocks.”

Getting started
Fogarty began Fire and Ice Creations as a side business in his garage in 1999, when he was focusing most of his attention on a distinguished culinary career as a chef, but he already had a longstanding enthusiasm for the ice carving.

“I saw it for the first time at a demonstration in 1977 and I was hooked,” he says.

He participated in ice-carving demonstrations and competitions. His work showed up everywhere from the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary to Winterlude in Ottawa to the Ice Magic competition in Lake Louise, Alta.

Finally, after 30 years as a chef, he left the culinary profession in spring 2007 to devote his full time to Fire and Ice. Since then, the company has produced work for weddings, corporate functions, baby showers, holidays and many other events. It has compiled an impressive list of achievements, including sculptures for the Juno Awards, which were hosted in Saskatoon in 2007, as well as an ice replica of the city’s University Bridge (also known as the 25^th Street Bridge), which was used for a sushi display at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Saskatoon, where the theme was ‘Bridging Communities.’

When taking on his first ice bar for La Bodega, Fogarty began the process by drawing templates for cutting out the logos representing the various corporate sponsors. He first photocopied each logo onto a piece of acetate, then used an overhead projector to beam the logos onto paper at actual size, so he could trace and sketch out the designs. This phase of the project took about four days.

Next, Fogarty glued each sheet of paper onto the corresponding block of ice, so he could cut out the logo by manually following the lines of the design. The accuracy of this approach was limited by the degree to which he could make repeatable cuts by hand.

“The potential for error was huge,” he says. “If I made even a slight cutting mistake, I had to start over with a new block of ice!”

Fogarty worked in a freezer, set at just -5 C (23 F), when cutting out the logos. As he progressed, he replaced the cut-out areas with a mixture of gelatin and finger paint to provide the corporate colours. It took four days to cut out the logos, along with the pillars and tops of the bar.

An extra two days were needed for assembling the ice bar. During this phase, Fogarty had to make the final cuts that enabled all of the pieces to fit together.

Moving to computers
In 2008, Fogarty began computerizing his ice-carving operations. The process was fast. By 2010, he was producing nearly all of his work using CAD/CAM software and a CNC ice router.

“I selected the software because of its ease of use, particularly for converting existing artwork from our clients and then sizing, positioning and mirroring their logos,” he says.

Indeed, for the 2010 ice bar, Fogarty received electronic versions of the sponsors’ logos, rather than using drawn templates. He preferred vector artwork, because it eliminated the need for an extra step of converting bitmap art to vector format; but in cases when he did receive a bitmap file, he was able to use the CAD/CAM software to convert it accordingly.

Then he examined all of the vector-based artwork and, if necessary, made adjustments to clean it up. The software included a ‘vector doctor’ feature that checked for ‘invisible’ errors in the logos that could cause problems during later machining, such as gaps between vectors that appeared to intersect or the overlaying of vectors atop one another. All such errors were highlighted and many were even corrected automatically.

In some cases, Fogarty needed to add text to a logo’s template, such as the name of the sponsor or a related slogan. He used the software’s ‘vector text’ feature to create these additional elements in the desired font and size and position them within each template.

The next step in the graphic design process was copying the image onto a template at the same size as the block of ice where the logo would appear. Typically, the blocks were 1 x 0.5 m (40 x 20 in.). This step involved centring the logo inside its rectangular template, then resizing it, so it took up sufficient space within the template. The software also facilitated the flipping of logos to create their mirror images, as mentioned.

“The software made it easy to produce the files needed to drive the ice cutter,” says Fogarty, who even used it to make copies of shot glasses that he produced out of ice for use at the bar.

Fire and Ice Creations uses a professional-grade CNC router designed specifically for carving ice sculptures. Fogarty was able to produce all of the pieces for the 2010 ice bar using the cutter, including the logos, the support pillars and the top counter surface.

Once everything was cut, Fogarty drove the pieces three hours from Saskatoon to Regina for on-site assembly. The logos fit into the pillars with tongue and groove joints.

This phase took only six hours—half the time required in the past—because all of the pieces had been CNC-routed so accurately, no further cutting was required on-site. Once complete, the ice bar stood 4 m (13 ft) wide, 2.7 m (9 ft) deep and 1.2 m (4 ft) tall.

“The software and router make it possible to produce a much more complex ice bar, with a higher level of accuracy, in less time than in the past,” says Fogarty.

Attracting attention
Each year, the La Bodega ice bar is showcased in a tent, protecting it from the elements, with bar stools on three sides. Generally, it operates Wednesday through Saturday from 6 p.m. to midnight. The most recent, for the 2011/2012 season, was created very similarly to the previous year’s ice bar, but was slightly smaller and featured different sponsor logos.

The bartenders are often representatives from the sponsoring corporations, though some football players from the Saskatchewan Roughriders have also been known to volunteer their assistance. They pour specialties like the Luge Martini, which is made by pouring vodka from a well within the bar down a block of crystal-clear ice into a glass.

“It’s the best tourist attraction in all of Saskatchewan,” says Adam Sperling, La Bodega’s executive chef.

Ice bars are increasing in popularity around the world, but most of them are built and showcased within freezers. La Bodega’s is one of the few outdoor ice bars, with the temperature in Regina typically ranging from 0 to -40 C (32 to -40 F) during the annual period of operation.

Jerry Fireman is president of Structured Information, which writes articles on behalf of clients like Delcam International in Windsor, Ont., a subsidiary of CAD/CAM software provider Delcam. For more information, visit www.delcam.com[8] and www.artcam.com[9].

Source URL: https://www.signmedia.ca/adding-logos-to-ice-sculptures/

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