SFMOMA Modern Ball

The Modern Ball is SFMOMA's signature annual fundraiser, drawing the Bay Area's collectors, curators, and cultural leaders to celebrate contemporary art. Designed and produced in collaboration with Stanlee Gatti Designs — the San Francisco event design studio behind many of the city's most memorable galas — OrangePiel delivered the backlit Andy Warhol photobooth walls, the night's most-photographed focal point.

Large-format dye-sublimation prints on translucent fabric were tensioned across the photobooth structures and evenly backlit to render the Warhol color palette with fidelity under event lighting. The backlit treatment kept the artwork at full saturation in both low-lit corridors and direct flash — a detail that matters when every guest's photo circulates on social media within minutes. The result: hours of candid, shareable moments rooted in the museum's own art history, turning every guest into a living riff on Warhol's silkscreened portraits.

Large-scale commercial installations hinge on three constraints this project navigates: print fidelity at architectural scale, fire-code compliance, and schedule. OrangePiel's dye-sublimation process delivers up to 1440 DPI on panels as large as 4 × 8 feet and wall-scale murals reaching 16 × 170 feet — wide enough for most commercial elevations as a single seamless run. NFPA 701 and ASTM E84 Class A fire ratings (flame spread under 25, smoke developed under 450) meet standard commercial building codes without sprinkler-zone retrofit. Production runs 2-4 weeks from approved proof to ground shipping. For installations that combine roller shades, printed panels, and murals — as is typical in mixed hospitality, retail, and cultural environments — OrangePiel specifies the full stack from a single Richmond, Virginia facility, which keeps color match consistent across substrates that otherwise would come from separate vendors. Every product is custom manufactured to order, with rush options available for time-critical openings.