An ice cream universe for Snowball, Wakad: 8 x 8 ft fabric light boxes in the ceiling, glowing planet menus and gold letters

The brief

The architect wanted the whole store to feel like a trip through space, ceiling included, and did not want ordinary ceiling lights. Most light boxes stop at 2 or 3 ft; this one had to be 64 sq ft, and there had to be two of them.

What we made

The two ceiling light boxes are fabric light boxes, 8 ft x 8 ft each: the architect’s universe-and-ice-cream design printed with UV inks on stretch fabric, sewn on all four sides with a silicone edge strip that presses into a groove in an anodised aluminium frame about 65 mm deep, so the print sits drum-tight with no creases. LED modules on an ACP back panel light it from behind.

Both boxes were assembled and switched on in our workshop before they went up into the ceiling.

Behind the counter, five round light boxes, from 1 ft to 2.5 ft across, act as glowing planets and menu boards: acrylic with a black side channel, white acrylic faces about 2.5 in deep, packed with LEDs, and backlit vinyl with the flavours printed on top.

The counter front is wrapped in a printed space-theme vinyl in the brand colours, and the tagline “explore the ice-cream universe” is cut on our laser in gold mirror acrylic, raised 3 mm and fixed letter by letter.

The wall behind the counter is printed too, in the same space theme, and so is the door to the back room, so that when it is shut it disappears into the galaxy.

Between the ceiling boxes and the five planets the store is flooded with light, so the few downlights have little left to do. And when the story changes, the print on a fabric light box can be swapped for a new one while the box stays in place.