Category: The innovation blog

The sky’s the limit

There is a massive, largely tapped, global market for wide-format technology: airplane graphics. Traditionally, airlines have painted their jets but a few years ago, New Zealand Air carried graphics on its plane promoting the Lord Of The Rings movies. Now, more airlines are using their planes to make a statement. The US airline Southwest has decorated one of its Boeing 737s so that it looks as if passengers are flying in Shamu, the killer whale at Sea World. Other Southwest’s Boeing 737s has been styled so they look like flying flags for the states of Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. The graphics for Air New Zealand weren’t printed directly onto the plane but onto a special material developed by 3M and approved by the Federal Aviation Authority.

Time to write that bookEvery printer can sell its services with a Powerpoint, while a select few have slick iPad apps showcasing their wares but Oxford publisher Infinite Ideas (www.infideas.com) suggests that if you really want...

How to test a good ideaIt’s a common problem: someone in your company has a new idea, but because it’s new you have no idea if it will work. Scott Anthony, managing director of a company called Innosight Ventures, has helpfully...

Blame and shameFew things are quite as enthralling in business as reading about other people’s mistakes. There’s the cheap, vicarious enjoyment of another company’s misfortune and stupidity but there is also, if we’re thoughtful...

Some words from the futureTim Greene of consultants Infotrends predicts that “in 2011, we’ll see a UV-curable metallic inkjet ink that could be applied to either wide-format printing or packaging” and that the aqueous durable...