Tulsa, OK-based Meeks Group has installed HP Scitex LX850 and FB700 industrial printers to help improve its productivity, meet environmental demands and diversify the company’s application offerings. Meeks is a full-service print provider specializing in vehicle wraps, banners, trade show graphics and point-of-purchase displays.
Source One Digital, located in Norton Shores, MI, recently installed a Uvistar 2 superwide-format UV roll printer, along with two UV inkjet flatbed machines—an Inca Onset S40 and Acuity Advance. “If it can be printed on rigid or roll material, we can print it.”
Inside Richard Childress Racing’s in-house graphics production studio, the RCR Graphics Center, a team of expert designers and installers are working night and day to wrap its extensive line-up of cars, trucks and trailers. The shop is currently running each of its Roland printers 14 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
For Franklin Imaging in Columbus, OH, the multilayer printing capabilities of the Truepress Jet2500UV gives the 30-employee digital imaging specialist lucrative market opportunities in high-impact print applications. “We wanted to upgrade our printing capabilities to reduce our turnaround times and improve quality,” said Emily Williamson, president.
According to InfoTrends, the global market for wide-format UV-curable inkjet printers and supplies is expected to grow from $1.42 billion in 2010 to $3.04 billion in 2015 for a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.4 percent.
Created by the aptly named Carl Pappenheim, Spineless Classics take the full texts of classic novels and arranges them into “single paper designs.” Having watched “architectural drawings roll off the presses at a friend’s printing company,” Pappenheim figured that he could fit 100,000 words on each poster-size sheet. The reaction to the resultant poster led to the creation of the company, and posters are now available as far a field as New Zealand.
Quad Express Printing in Hayward, CA, is the first U.S. customer to purchase an EFI VUTEk GS3250 grand-format inkjet printer from Heidelberg USA. The printer aims to expand into the grand-format display market from its core offset printing business.
A complete vehicle wrap with the look of a QR code and featuring functioning QR codes has been designed and installed by AmeriSign & Graphics, a full-service sign, design, digital imaging and offset printing company (in Milwaukee) with more than 27 years in business.
Chris Sherman, president of AmeriSign & Graphics, addressed the question of what people will see when they scan one of the giant codes. “You’ll have to scan it to see!” he said. “The landing graphic will change depending on different times of year, current specials, news and contests.
“We haven’t found anything like this in existence anywhere else,”
Stephen Hoey, president of wide-format graphics printer KDF Reprographics, had no idea that a request to produce the vinyl vehicle wrap for a Mini Cooper "on the cheap" would lead to several related print jobs, a role in a movie and national exposure for his Rockleigh, NJ-based company.
For companies that have digital document capability, the addition of wide-format digital is an easy process. They've moved past conventional “print think” where a successful print run has to be in the tens of thousands, and have incorporated a short-run business model with value-added services such as customization and managed distribution.
Companies new to digital imaging that are adding wide-format before digital document printing will have an easy time managing the technology. Their challenge will be refocusing the organization’s business model, and the sales staff usually is the hardest group to convert.
