Having had conversations with a number of MBO teams of wide-format print businesses over the last few weeks, and now with Tharstern’s news, it seems that 2014 is fast becoming the year of management buy-ins. If you’ve been involved in an MBO this year please get in touch.
Blogs
How graphic do you want it?
Fespa has produced a post-show infographic of Fespa Digital 2014 which can be found at http://www.fespa.com/news/features/post-show-report-fespa-digital-2014.html. My question is, how useful do you find information delivered in this way, and would it help you if Image Reports produced more charts of this nature in stats heavy reports such as Widthwise? Or do you think simple graphs are the way to go? Let me know – the planning for the 2015 is already underway.
Get seen
It’s great to see companies thinking outside the box and raising their publicity game to attract attention to the sector – in this enews we see Astley and Brook International doing just that. What projects are you working on that will attract new talent into the industry or spread the word about what can be creatively achieved with wide-format print?
Onto a winner?
Display Wizard’s good fortune has me wondering how many of you have ever won a bit of wide-format print kit, and if so, what was it and was it worth having?
Standing out from the crowd
Can small really be beautiful? We’ve become well versed in the arguments for and against diversifying into new niche markets and experimenting with low volume bespoke applications yet, as the Widthwise 2014 survey highlighted, it’s the big, established wide-format print markets like posters, signage, display graphics etc. that continue to have the strongest pull and top the list of areas where companies are still looking to get newly involved over the next two years. That’s great in a way – it signifies that people still see plenty of life in these areas. But what does it say about today’s attitudes towards innovation and risk in the wide-format market?
I’m back and don't I know it
Heck, we editors can usually go away for a couple of weeks in the post-show early summer season knowing that it will be quiet on the news scene for a bit. But today I came back to 1200 emails! OK, a lot of them were rubbish, but you’ll see from the stories below, that this is no quiet summer – so far. How are you finding it?
Ottimo Digital expand
Think Bigger
What did you think of Widthwise?
Hybrid Thinking Bigger
It’s good to see the wide-format suppliers doing their bit to encourage new talent into our sector especially as the talent are creative types and likely potential print buyers of the future so keep up the good work Hybrid! Here at IR we would love to hear from any more of you especially from suppliers or printers doing your bit to encourage new talent into our sector or engaging with the creative’s.
Congrats to Macro Art team
I just want to take the chance to say congratulations to the management team at Macro Art now that its buyout of the business is final. John Walker was well regarded, so you have a lot to live up to! Good luck with your plans for continued growth.
Money makes the world go around
What Fespa is doing to fund print training in Turkey is commendable – and understandable given the scope for development and growth of Eurasia’s print markets, where vendors (and Fespa exhibitors?) can no doubt see much potential. I constantly hear of skills gaps and lack of appropriate training courses for the large-format community here also. It will be interesting to see if this well established market proves an educational investment lure for Fespa too.
Vision on
As inkjet continues its quest for worldwide domination, which developments do you consider most likely to impact upon your wide-format print business – either positively or negatively? And would you be happy to openly discuss the matter with your peers?
Fighting talk
Two Sides and Print Power do a fab job of educating the market about the real sustainability story of print, but it’s worrying that the ‘save the environment, don’t print’ messages seem to be gaining renewed momentum. Any bright ideas about how we can fight back any harder than we already are?