Digital Printing-Wide Format - Roll to Roll

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.

Since I am on Topps' e-mail list and am a sports card collector of 30-plus years, the subject line of "Topps Larger-than-Life Wall Graphics" in a recent missive was intriguing.

Springfield, MO, sign printer nPrint Graphix had just started using a new HP (Palo Alto, CA) Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer when the TV show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” came to town. When nPrint Graphix CEO John Fugitt heard about it, he got in touch with the show's producers and interior designers to discuss wide-format inkjet projects that could be used inside the house they were building for a local family.

The show was thrilled to have nPrint Graphix on board as the episode's official printing sponsor, donating 100% of its products and time. “We get into several different [charity] projects all across the country, but this was a new one, dealing with a national show and the donation of our time,” says Fugitt.

PRINT 09 offered an array of wide-format printing systems and highlighted a number of industry trends that could present opportunities for commercial printers, including sustainability and high-volume POP production.

BROTHERS OMAR Rodriguez and Hugo Cervantes, owners of East Los Angeles-based X-Igent Printing, know a thing or two about starting a commercial printing business from the ground up. When the shop they were working for was acquired by a new owner, they decided to cash in $70,000 of the equity in a home they purchased in 2000 to launch their own brokerage, turned printing operation, in 2001.

Océ, an international leader in digital document management, announces the U.S. preview of its PosterizerTM integrated signage solution at Océ booth #5450 during GlobalShop® 2009, March 23-25, in Las Vegas, NV. Convincing, coordinated and innovative signage can motivate customers to spend more during every store visit.

EFI, the world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, today announced that Joseph Merritt & Company of Hartford, Connecticut, has added an EFI VUTEk QS3200r 3.2 meter superwide format roll-to-roll UV printer to its production portfolio. Prior to acquisition of the QS3200r, the shop had an all-solvent superwide format production platform.

IF YOU had an opportunity to attend SGIA or Graph Expo—or both—last month, I hope you took the time to see what is new in the world of wide-format ink-jet. There have been lots of exciting advances that commercial printing businesses should consider taking advantage of to diversify their businesses and drive revenue growth.