three months outdoors

[solarbird]

Three months ago, I put up some vertical mini-flyers along the Burke-Gilman Trail in Northshore, pointing people to the Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map.

I’ve been keeping an eye on them and how they’ve held up, and today I brought them back inside.

For this first version, I trimmed right to the edge of the paper, and the pin holes went through the paper too. Then I used a tent waterproofing seal on the edges. The edges did not hold completely or even consistently; one failed almost immediately, but kept its integrity. The others failed less rapidly but nonetheless failed.

Despite that, the QR code and large text stayed legible throughout, and although the maps became very faded and/or washed out out over time, I think they’re still identifiable as maps.

i’ve put up new, bigger ones, six instead of three, and put them in the same places plus few others. They’re printed darker, and I kept plastic borders rather than being trimmed to edge with added waterproof sealant. The pins this time went through said borders, and not the paper.

I presume being printed darker will help with fading, and hopefully the heat-sealed laminate edges will improve the water resistance. But we’ll see over a few months’ time.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Comments

[frameacloud]

What a cool thing to do, I love it! Those improvements sound like they'll help with keeping them waterproof.

[solarbird]

I'd honestly not realised they'd been out there for three months. I thought I'd put them out sometime early in December, but I checked the records and SURPRISE IT WAS HALLOWEEN so.

I'm honestly much happier with their condition given three months instead of six-seven weeks or whatever. Hopefully these will last similarly long but remain in better condition over the timeframe.