If you’ve ever stepped into local dental office, Lifepath Wellness, one of the first things that will catch your eye is the adorable rhinoceros popping out of the ceiling when you come through the doors. The question is often asked, ‘who did that?’ well wouldn’t you know it, it is one of Chestermere’s very own that is the mind behind the amazing work and many many more.
David Nolan, along with partner Andrew Hulbert, is the owner of Studio Y Creations – an innovator and leader in the theming and display industry for twenty one successful years. This Calgary based company, with another location in Southern Florida, is considered among the best companies in the world for designing and manufacturing three dimensional displays.
What started with doing amazing floats for the Calgary Stampede parade – forty one 1st place floats to be exact – led to expansion into the United States which led to doing out of this world design work for museums, zoos and theme parks. “We have done some pretty crazy stuff….castles, the world’s largest wagon wheel, the world’s largest gorilla…pretty crazy stuff, “explains Nolan. “When the recession hit, we were already doing the odd pediatric dental office, but soon realized that theme parks were going to get hammered and not likely wanting to spend money on the type of stuff we do. We made a change in our mind and really started to focus on this new brand, Imagination Dental and now we’re nuts doing office after office after office.”
Building now over 125 pediatric dental offices all over the United States and some in Alberta, the desire to move into putting these amazing designs into these offices was not purely a business decision. Nolan explains, “I have an 11 year old son, Jack, and he has autism. So for me, a huge part of why I want to do this is because I love the idea of taking the fear out of something for kids. So if it’s taking the fear out of going to the dentist, then that’s huge. I love working with pediatric dentists as they truly love kids and so they gravitate to the stuff we do.”
Nolan goes onto explain that the most popular themes over the years has been jungle and marine life, but he is slowly seeing others pop up such as the outer space theme. Some of their works is displayed locally at places such as the Calgary International Airport, Spruce Meadows, the Calgary Zoo, and the Terrell Museum in Drumheller. They’ve also designed work and shipped as far away as Dubai, India.
What does it take to get noticed in this industry? “We go to a couple of trade shows and then after we had done a couple of really key projects in the theme park industry, then those guys take note and say ‘huh, those Studio Y guys are pretty good’ and then your reputation builds and then you don’t really need to advertise after that. So, for instance, when we built these giant gorillas for the Hollywood Wax Museum, we built three of them. The first one we built was 40 feet tall and weighed about 41,000 pounds – it was an enormous piece and it was the world’s largest gorilla. Well, once we did that, then everyone took note. On the dental side, I would say we have an even stronger reputation because there is no one really that is really doing what we’re doing in dental. We have dentists saying to us ‘I wish we would have called you ten years ago”.
Almost everything that they do is handcrafted, with the exception of a few things that are made from molds, like the ‘Smile Tile’ animal heads at Lifepath Wellness. Instead of manually building characters and then scanning them, everything is designed digitally. From that digital model, there are machines that will carve out the shape from that digital model. Aside from the 3D pieces, Studio Y also will do digital murals – full floor to ceiling should that be what the client wants.
“We have amazingly talented staff. We have recruits, lots of graduates from the Alberta College of Art and Design – some have not ever carved or designed out of foam. But they come in, they learn and they do amazing work”, said Nolan.
Studio Y has found their way to give back by doing work with a variety of charities – donating a real scale horse to an equestrian therapy society and also do work with Make a Wish Foundation.
“At Studio Y Creations, it is our mission to remain a leader for creativity, quality, service and innovation in the display industry. We look forward to what the next 20 years will bring.”
