Features

Practicing what IT preaches

Biodegradable graphics can pay

Sophie Matthews-Paul provides guidelines on getting the quality you expect.

It’s a bit like like buying a new car; we all want a bargain but most of us also need a quality motor that won’t let us down and will match the claimed running costs and service charges. And, of course, we would like it to hold its value as the years pass to make sure that it’s been a worthwhile purchase. A wide-format inkjet printer is a similar type of investment, but it also needs to be able to return a profit.

Sophie Matthews-Paul assesses the printer EFI Vutek GS200 in a live demonstration environment in the US.

The world’s first Wide Format Print Shop Live at Fespa Americas, held in Orlando at the end of February, provided an opportunity to take a close look at the Vutek GS2000 2m UV-curable option from EFI, from initial delivery and set-up through to continuous running at the show.

Do we have an identity crisis?

Digital wide-format printers have the versatility and capability to print directly to non-traditional materials. Melony Rocque-Hewitt looks at how this is creating new niche areas for PSPs.

A sheet of glass worth £90 is not very exciting. However, take the aforementioned sheet, print an image to its underside direct using a digital flatbed printer, and the same sheet of glass not only looks a whole lot more attractive but it’s probably worth somewhere in the region of £300.

One time photo lab turned large-format print printer, Contact Photographic Services continues to push the envelope as the 2000th company to buy into Océ’s Arizona print technology uses it to find new markets.

Would you pay more for a simpler tax system? According to a recent poll of small businesses, over half would. But, given that’s not going to happen anytime soon, Ray Abercromby, partner at BTG Tax, gives his top tips for cutting through some of the red tape.

After a year in partnership, Borney UK and Your Sign are seeing the strategy pay off. Could a similar move be your best route to growth?

Melony Rocque-Hewitt takes a look at some of the more unusual niche markets opened-up by digital wide-format print.

Digital print technology is at the stage where anything can be realised. Here we look at how some companies have capitalised on the possibilities of wide-format to grow and evolve their businesses and in doing so, have created new market areas.

When we remind ourselves about the early days of wide-format digital technology one thing we’ll all acknowledge is that we were pretty limited by the inks and materials available, and how well the machines of the day could handle them. If the results came out well on our chosen substrate, then we were pretty satisfied; if the end product wasn’t fit for purpose, then the ink tended to get blamed.

Wide-format digital print is all about ink and its inherent behaviour during the processes we expect it to endure. For machine manufacturers, it’s the element in their equipment that actually proves the unit is as good as it claims to be. Ink also represents the part of the printing process which tends to play a major role in carrying the responsibility for quality even though it is dependent on machinery and technology for being transferred from cartridge or bottle through to the printhead nozzles and jetted onto the material beneath.

See-through graphics offer a huge opportunity but the most commonly used materials have their drawbacks. As leading player Contra Vision points out with their technical knowledge, new developments mean it’s worth looking again.

Mention see-through graphics, or one-way vision graphics as the medium is also popularly known, and thoughts immediately turn to perforated self-adhesive materials that are printed and then subsequently applied to all manner of transparent surfaces from vehicle windows to office partitioning; architectural glazing to impressive expanses of buildings’ exteriors and retail windows. That however, far from encapsulates the medium. There are other ways of producing see-through graphics, and other materials to use. They work practically anywhere perforated media can be used, and in thousands of places, situations, and applications where they simply can’t.