StreetBeefs Cage Redesign 2

StreetBeefs background

StreetBeefs is a Virginia based fight club, started in 2008. They invite people with real life (potentially deadly) arguments to come and fight it out in a ring instead, emphasized in their motto: “Guns down, gloves up“. It is a great organization that helps people to solve their problems in a ring, with referees, rounds, and safe oversight. I first learned about the club from a piece by the NYTimes featuring Chris Wilmore, the club’s founder, and began to watch the fights on YouTube, engaged by the idea of peacemaking.

Some of the fights are beef fights, in which combatants are avoiding gunfire. Many of the fights, though, are between fighters who have no external conflict, and who have gained some following due to the popularity of the videos. One very prominent and highly recognizable element, practically a character in itself in StreetBeefs videos is the cage, which contains various names indicating wall-of-fame status, fights won leaderboard, and other various information. The names are legend in the group, famous within that circle, and seen by (potentially) over a million subscribers in every fight. Someone had painted the names on the panels by hand. Bright yellow letters soared on the black plywood panel. It looks raw, street, and dramatic. If anything, I thought, maybe it could be a bit more organized and legible. But it was cool, and honest.

I noticed that Chris’ shout-out advertising for sponsors was pretty effective in getting a brand in the eyes and ears of many. With that in mind, I decided to reach out to Chris to see what his advertising rates were. What could it hurt, right? I thought it might be a good way to advertise my services in Virginia, though subscribers to StreetBeefs watch from all over the world.

In mid-June, Chris responded over chat, and we started discussing how advertising might work out. In chatting, I mentioned that I loved the StreetBeefs Cage, but that I had a little dream that maybe I could redesign it for clarity. Chris responded enthusiastically, and asked if maybe we could trade shout outs before fights for work on the Cage, and he’d hang a banner for me during intros. I loved that idea. In addition to graphic work, he also needed some reinforcements for the cage and gates, which would sometimes swing open when large fighters would knock in to them. He added that he wanted to keep the ‘street feel’ to the cage, and not make it too clean/refined/hard-edged, a feeling that many StreetBeefs members reinforced later in prompts online.

StreetBeefs Cage Redesign

We agreed, and we set a done-by date. The deadline was July 4th, for a mixer event that they had planned. I started working on designs, and sending them to Chris and other staff, like SunShine and Lord Esteban, for approvals. After a few designs, we came to an agreement. I also started to prepare a banner for the intros.

So, after agreeing on the design, I took a trip out to visit the cage in Winchester, VA, about 2 hours from my location. I got to meet Wolverine, which was cool given that I had seen him in many of the videos. I measured the panels, investigated reinforcing the cage, and started planning a supply list. Originally, I planned to replace the plywood panels and start fresh. Without a truck, spare cash for the replacement plywood, or electric on site, the panel replacement idea would need help and money to happen. We scrapped rebuilding the cage panels to simplify the project. Due to an unfortunate mutual miscommunication, we had to delay for a week, which cut the lead time dramatically, and the whole StreetBeefs project almost fell apart.

We talked and regrouped and came to an agreement the week before the event. I started to pack for the work trip and anticipated an easy execution.

My original supply list:

• 2 cans black spraypaint
• 4 cans yellow spraypaint
• 2 packs 5 inch cardboard letter stencils
• 1 set 3 inch connected plastic letter stencils
• 4 foot level for line layout
• general toolkit of art supplies (knives, colored pencils, and various other tools)
• Tripod
• Gaffer’s tape
• Scotch tape
• Larger gate closer for install

Challenges

I arrived on site by 10 am just 2 days before the event. I quickly realized that a few things might eventually get in the way of me finishing in time:

• There was no grid power on site. My phone battery relied on my car running. It meant no use of lights, projectors, or anything else requiring steady power that might come in handy for a mural install.
• The heat was in the 90s each day I was there, and the site is an open field. Working more than a few hours at a time in open sun was impossible. Re-upping on water meant a trip to 7-Eleven, about 15 minutes away.
• There was no bathroom on site, and so a round-trip to the nearest public bathroom (that same 7-Eleven) was a 30 minute affair.
• The place where I was is fairly remote from retail shops where I could get unforeseen supplies, usually 20 minutes or more away.
• The site’s grass had (reasonably) not been cut since the last event, but the tall grass meant ticks, bees, wasps, and mosquitoes were at high levels. I often used a concrete-padded pavilion with a roof to arrange and tape the stencils, but the wasps did not like me being near their many homes in the beams.
• Also frustrating efforts were the short gusts of wind that would pass through the field, often blowing 10 minutes of work off the table before the letters could be taped together along their seams. Sometimes I’d run over to the cage to do an install, and when I returned, I’d go find what had blown away.

I accomplished a lot in the first of two trips, despite these issues and challenges.

Day One

I realized that 2 cans was not nearly enough in painting over the panels with the black spraypaint. I figured that the 4 cans of yellow would not be enough either. 1 can covered about two large panels. So, I located the nearest hardware store in Google Maps, a True Value about 20 minutes away, and went to get extra cans of black, yellow, and orange spraypaint as an accent. Upon returning, I covered the rest of the panels with black spraypaint, and I began the process of arranging and scotch taping lines of the 5 inch stencil letters, in the relatively cool comfort of the roofed pavilion. It was also nice that there were a few trash cans and a bucket that served as work tables and chair out in the cage.

I printed out a page with the agreed-upon design to have all of the spell-checked names ready. Using the 5 inch cardboard letter stencils, I’d layout and scotch tape a line at a time, and then carry them over to the cage and use gaffer’s tape to hold them in place. Struggling to gaffe-tape a whole line proved difficult. I learned that it was easier to tape a few words at a time rather than the whole line, even on the small panels to avoid breaking the line apart at the scotch taped seams.

If a name had duplicate letters, or if one line had 5 of one letter, I needed extras. I had to trace and cut out duplicates of the letter or punctuation from scrap cardboard. A name like Ref Rob used up all of the R’s I had to use in that line. At the end of the first day, I felt like it was going slow. I had repainted the entire cage black, and finished just a part of the Staff panel. I decided I would eventually add the orange accent to the Staff panel and titles.

Day Two

I camped out on-site in my car to save on costs. I enjoyed exploring the great gas station markets in Winchester, and I enjoyed getting my meals in them. After the sun went down, it was nice to explore the beautiful town. The stars and moon were incredibly bright and clear in the open field far from any traffic. It was deeply quiet. The next day, I awoke early, went and got breakfast and a gallon of cold water. I came back to finish the Staff panel. When I measured out the letters for the first Wall of Fame, I realized I had a brand new challenge.

The Wall of Fame Challenge

The 5 inch letters I had used for the Staff panel would not work for the Wall of Fame panels. Not all of the required names would fit at that size. Two names in a line wouldn’t work in some cases, because the second name sometimes just would not fit. I measured again and realized that I had made a mistake. Either my scale on my design was wrong or my measurement of the panels was wrong. The 5 inch letters would not work. Fighter names averaged 11 letters each.

For every name like ‘Beach’, there were two or three names like ‘Jordanian Nightmare’. So, I looked at my tools to see how I could solve it. 3 inch stencil letters would work great. I’d need to paint them one letter at a time because the stencils were plastic and four to a sheet. I did not want to cut the plastic stencils or spend the day seeking out cardboard 3″ stencils. The 5″ letters were from Staples. A disappointing trip to Michael’s had every possible letter stencil, but all in wacky fonts. I did not want to take out time to run to Staples, because time was running out.

After thinking through a few solutions, I decided I would try hand painting each letter. I’d trace the stencil with a colored pencil that would show up on the black background, then hand-paint the tracing. Acrylic yellow paint would help, as I had nothing but spraypaint. Spray painting would be hard without masking the letters to the left and right each time. Hand-painting might greatly increase the time it would take to finish the panels. I still had most of the day to finish before the event the next day. I went to the nearby WalMart, picked up some yellow acrylic paint in tubes, and got back to the site. I decided to test it on the cage gate, which just needed the word ‘StreetBeefs’ added. If it took too long, I would possibly still be able to devise another solution before time ran out.

In short, it was a disaster. The tracing took a long time. It did not look remotely clean. The acrylic paint color was not so much yellow as neon green. The single word ‘StreetBeefs’ took nearly an hour, and the heat was really taking its toll. The project would not be finished, because the plan didn’t work, and I needed a new plan and more time. I contacted Chris, told him the cage would most likely not be ready.

The new plan: spraypaint the letters individually using the connected plastic 3 inch letter stencils. This is how I ended up finishing all of the Wall of Fame panels, just not during this first trip. It included gaffe-taping the plastic stencil letters in place. Each individual letter is lined up, then tape is used to block the letters to the right and left. Spraypaint is applied, then tape is removed. Rinse, lather, repeat.

I documented this in the video below where I add Beach to the Wall of Fame. It leaves a messy imprint because of all of the motion around very fresh paint. That added to the imprecise, raw feel. It results in a letter painted every two minutes on average, which means about an hour per line per panel. You can see the hand-traced-and-painted method being replaced in the gate video below.

Chris was very understanding. In the first trip, I completed the gates, the Staff panel, a single line on 3 Walls of Fame, and titles. I traveled home, watched the event that ended up using the new panels unfinished, and was a little discouraged. Despite driving, working and gathering supplies, sunrise to sunset for two days, I had not completed the task.

However, I learned a lot. Using the plastic stencils worked relatively quickly. I’d be able to finish the Cage before the next event. I learned a lot about what was around in terms of resources in a town I hadn’t visited before. When I returned, I decided to bring a tarp and water. I’d eventually go to Staples in Winchester to buy cardboard 3″ letters to finish the Most Wins panels.

Final supply list:

• 4 cans black spraypaint
• 8 cans yellow spraypaint
• 1 can orange spraypaint
• 2 quarts acrylic paint
• 2 packs 5 inch cardboard letter stencils
• 2 packs 3 inch cardboard letter stencils
• 1 set 3 inch connected plastic letter stencils
• 4 foot level for line layout
• general toolkit of art supplies (knives, colored pencils, and various other tools)
• Tripod
• Gaffer’s tape
• Scotch tape
• tarp and zip ties to create shade
• a few gallons of water
• 10,000 MaH power bank to provide non-vehicle power for phone

Day Three

The next StreetBeefs event was coming up on July 11th. I drove up late on Wednesday, set up the site, got something to eat, camped out, got up early. With the tarp in place, water on hand, and the power bank charged, work was a lot less stressful. I set up to continue the letters as I had on the Walls of Fame, using the same method. It was slow, but fast enough to do an entire line in an hour. Here is the completed wall of fame, essentially my halfway point on day 3, after about 6 hours.

So, the final part of day 3 was completing the Most Wins panels. I looked at the punch list for the Most Wins panels. I realized it was time to just go into town to Staples and get the 3 inch cardboard letters. It would save time to be able to string them together in the same fashion as the Staff panel. So I did, and I also purchased index cards so that I could easily make duplicate letters. Plenty of daylight remained. I had a great time-saving tool in the smaller cardboard stencils.

By using the tarp and staying hydrated, things were comfortable. I was excited. The taped lines of cardboard stencils were a lot quicker to install than the plastic stencils. I used index cards to duplicate letters in the stencil image below.

The panels were finally complete. I took a final panorama video for posterity. Then, I was on my way home, surprisingly, after the first working day of the second trip.

Conclusions

In conclusion, there were a lot of pros and cons in the planning, design, and execution of the project. I did not complete the project on time. It did not turn out exactly like the proposed design. There were a lot of interesting physical and design challenges that took time to overcome. The cage retained its hand-painted, raw street-fight feel. The solutions eventually worked. I’m very happy with the final product. The remaining open panels provide opportunities for extension of the lists and other possibilities. I’d personally like to see graffiti based designs by talented artists in the group on Facebook.

I’m really happy that I was able to work on the project. Chris was pleased. Most exciting for me, StreetBeefs is going to be shouting me out for a while in exchange for the work. I want to thank Chris, SunShine, Corey, Esteban and everyone else at StreetBeefs for helping me to make it work!

If you have a design, logo, branding, or art project, I’d love to talk with you about it. You can talk with me at lemasney@gmail.com. Check out my rates page for an idea of costs. Take a look at my portfolio to see my design work. Let’s do something great together.

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