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Bold new roll and flatbed print technologies, major advancements in ink, and inventive substrate innovations are all blending to make this a grand era for wide-format imaging shops specializing in grand-format outdoor applications.
Whether they're turning out vehicle graphics, building wraps, outdoor POP displays, promotional awnings and canopies, or street and sidewalk graphics, wide-format imaging professionals are profiting from steady improvements in vinyls, inks, fabrics, and printers. The results include more environmentally-safe processes, crisper and more vibrant graphics, quicker turnaround times and happier clients.
Why, given the evolution in wide-format outdoor graphics, many wide-format imaging professionals working in outdoor might be excused for "grandstanding" a bit.
Of course, one of the most notable trends impacting grand-format is a move away from solvent-based inks to ultraviolet-curable inks. That trend has been felt at Excelsus Solutions, a three-year-old Rochester, NY shop headed by Mark Laniak.
The company produces high volumes of transit signage, as well as outdoor point-of-purchase materials to promote shows, promotions and sales.
"In the past, printers used solvent inks that were not good for the environment, and required some type of protectant," Laniak says. "Now you have Durst, VUTEk, Nur, and HP all coming out with UV machines, following the lead of Europe in trying to reduce volatile organic compounds. Typically, the grand-format—those bigger machines—were always solvent. Now printer makers are all pushing toward grand-format being UV. It's much safer for the environment, and a more durable product."
Rick Cothran, division manager of the color lab at Greenville, SC-based TPM, a 24-year-old company that started out as a straight reprographics business and has since evolved into a producer of vehicle and fleet graphics, fabric and mesh banners, and POP, has seen his shop climb aboard the UV-curable bandwagon.
"The industry is moving toward UV inks," he says. "Several manufacturers have roll machines for banners that use UV inks. The biggest reason is the environment. You cut out the gas, the smell, the need to vent machines with solvent-based inks...In some cases, you may win a contract with clients who are extremely green minded."
TPM color solutions specialist Andrew Long adds that the UV inks are not only more affordable, but Durst inks, made by Sun Chemical, are 100 percent free of VOCs.
Another trend affecting TPM is the greater potential of dye sublimation printing. In the past, dye sublimation was slow and the inks costly. That's dramatically changed, and as a result TPM plans on pursuing dye sublimation in a grand-format of 126 inches, Cothran says. The shop is preparing to move its fabric banner work to dye sublimation in an effort to capture projects calling for fabric banners with sharp, vibrant images.
"The color gamut is much broader with dye sublimation than with solvent, and more durable too," Long adds. "And that's a selling point with our clients."
Innovative Substrates
TPM also is looking to expand its grand-format work using a recently-introduced 3M vinyl that can be applied on textured walls. The product can be imprinted like any other vinyl, but is applies with a heat gun, adheres to joints, and resembles an image painted on the building. Moreover, it is fully removable after a program of three to six months. "Our installers are being trained to become certified by 3M right now," Cothran says. "That's going to be a hot item for sports stadiums."
The shop is using another 3M product for outdoor promotions, he adds. Similar to a floor graphic, it can be applied to streets and sidewalks, and features a laminate that prevents slippage. These graphics can be used at entrances of stores, but more commonly are employed on streets to display a festival logo. The logo stays vibrant even as thousands of fest-goers walk over it.
Additional business-building opportunities are being afforded by yet another 3M product being used by TPM, this one a vinyl designed to capture the attention of any motorist or pedestrian traversing nighttime streets. "We're doing a lot of reflective graphics using 3M Reflective Vinyl," Long says. "It's great for getting graphics visible at night, whether it's used on trucks or as building signage. When you flash headlights on it, it illuminates."
TPM also maintains thriving profit centers producing boulevard banners seen on the lightposts of cities, and canopies and awnings that feature signage or promotional messages. Most of its canopies and awnings are done on the shop's VUTEk using 14- to 18-oz. Panaflex vinyl that's translucent and outstanding in backlit applications. The substrate is utilized in the street signage used by major retailers like Target, Cothran reports, and it's an excellent material for canopies as well.
Finally, the addition of a Durst flatbed printer 18 months ago has allowed TPM to take on larger POP products it wouldn't have tackled earlier. The company can now produce POP work on acrylics and plexiglass, printing front and back and in white ink, either flood or spotlight," Cothran reports.
Client Expectations
As digital technology evolves in grand-format, so too do the demands from customers. Those expectations are being felt in everything from smaller-run printing to the need for variations in larger runs, Laniak says.
"There's a lot of componentry that can be printed on digital presses that typically runs concurrently with larger, national print runs. If you're going to do that, the quality has to be the same as the larger runs. The promotional materials need to look the same. The large-format digital can help add value and cost savings, because it's much more economical to do smaller runs of certain components."
In addition, Laniak finds today's customers are more accepting of special colors derived from processed colors. Not only do customers appreciate that the jobs are more economical, but they like the greater flexibility in turn times, Laniak says.
"Here's another thing I see trending," he adds. "You have a customer who wants 5,000 of one item. In some cases, that customer will pay a higher price for the offset if they can get within those thousands hundreds of different variations. Instead of having one file producing 5,000 of the same, maybe they have 300 different graphics within those 5,000 total pieces. Changing versioning is much more affordable in digital."
One final trend observed by Laniak—and perhaps a surprising one—is a move away from an outdoor advertising medium that has proven highly popular in recent years. "We provide product for Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse, and we're seeing a trend to get away from bus wraps," he says. "Because it's difficult to put on and take off, the wraps wind up on the bus for a long time. That's what I'm seeing, an interest in getting away from the more permanent wraps that take buses out of commission."
Customer Handholding
At Megaprint, a 13-year-old, nine-employee Holderness, NH business that produces a lot of short-run outdoor banners, president Jay Buckley reports one of the biggest trends is the willingness of customers to take a crack at design. "In my business, customers send us files of something they've done," he relates.
"They've gotten more computer literate and more are designing their own stuff. We help them through that design process, or fix what they've already done, so they don't get a dozen banners that are all a mess...Very often, we're seeing people who are not classically-trained graphic designers trying to do their own graphic work."
Megaprint has responded to client needs by acquiring new higher-speed equipment. "To give us higher quality and higher product speeds, we've added an HP 9000, specifically for a couple customers who we felt really needed the higher-quality output," Buckley says. "Some of the things we used to do on the HP aqueous machines, we're now able to do on the 9000 and give them a more durable product."
Noting the days of cut vinyl letters are swiftly ending, Buckley notes his staff has to educate customers on all the possibilities available in banners these days. Many clients seems surprised to learn they can design their banner using their favorite programs, create backgrounds that transition from white to deep blue and add an array of graphic effects that include blends, fills and pictures, he reports.
Buckley also observes that all jobs formerly done in silkscreen are going the digital route. "Somebody who used to buy a thousand banners done by silk screening, that's all headed toward high-production digital," he says. "Digital is just going to take over a lot of these hand operations."
Put them together, and the advancements in grand format printing are delighting wide-format imaging professionals and their customers alike, Laniak says.
"It's a very exciting time to be in this business because of change in technology, and it's a technology that allows people to kind of break out of the box we've been in for a while. It's an easy business to sell right now. There's probably something we can do here that the customer has never thought about before."
Jeff Steele is a freelance writer who specializes in the field of business management, marketing, and protocol, especially as they apply to wide-format printing firms. Contact him at scribsteel@ameritech.net.
author: BY JEFFREY STEELE