Our contact at the City of Palo Alto originally wanted simple building shapes that would sit loosely on an aerial photograph of downtown Palo Alto’s South of Forest Area.  Our first thought was, “who is going to be the one to sit there and realign over 100 loose buildings when someone bumps the table or wants to move the model?”  Because we wanted the most useful presentation tool, we proposed mounting sheet metal to the underside of the aerial photo and embedding magnets in each of the buildings.  The city planners loved the idea!  We also glued the trees into doughnut shaped magnets so they could be scattered throughout or concentrated in the proposed development areas.  We used high-strength magnets so that the model could be displayed vertically without fear of the heavier buildings falling off.  As a bonus, we added boundary graphics and street names before printing the aerial, and applied a dry-erase laminate to the surface to protect the photograph and allow the city planners to draw directly on the model.  The planners were able to have discussions around a table, then present the ideas to an audience, while holding the model totally vertical!  We accomplish Model Art™ whenever we produce purposeful presentations.