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Three Major Wide-format Trends to Watch in 2020
Posted on by Shellie Terry Posted in News & Trends
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Three Major Wide-format Trends to Watch in 2020

If you’ve been in wide format printing for a while, or even if you’re new here, you’ve probably noticed that things move pretty quickly in this space, from customer expectations to equipment upgrades to new material launches. These changes, upgrades and improvements are never-ending, so here’s a quick list of what we see as the hot topics to watch as 2020 gets started:

Strategic Convergence. You heard a lot about convergence at Printing United, specifically. There was a wave of chatter about diversifying and jumping into different segments to stay relevant, serving at least two segments, like sign & graphic, apparel or packaging. Sales and profitability were both up the most in 2018 for sign & graphic producers, according to NAPCO Research and SGIA. But when diversifying, businesses may have growing pains from adding staff or lacking focus. Working with a good partner who supplies material as well as education and business consultation is key to helping you make the best decisions of material inventory, equipment upgrades and workflow efficiencies. Get a handle on these issues, and your team can converge strategically.

Environmental Responsibility. If there’s one topic on everyone’s tongues, it’s sustainability. At Printing United, some customers who visited our booth were only interested in eco-friendly material options. There’s a generational divide to keep in mind: While Baby Boomer customers tend to embrace their brand loyalty, Millennials and younger are willing to pay more for products made with sustainability in mind. This is true in the consumer world, and growing increasingly true in the business decisions they make. Our industry is working hard to find ways to make materials from recycled or reclaimed items, like plastic water bottles, and, in turn, ways for those products to be recycled or reused to create a circular economy that the print world hasn’t seen previously. Stay tuned for product releases that are better for the earth so you can plan to market them to the customers who are the most receptive to them.

Increased Competition. This isn’t competition from the sign shop down the street. It’s competition from your own customers, who now have access to lower-priced, entry-level printing equipment that’s allowing them to do their own in-house printing — like retail outlets, schools and more. Combat this by excelling in areas they can’t, such as more complex decor applications that require more intense set up and installation; investment in new technology, like dye-sublimation, which can advance you into textile printing; or offer customization in printing with software that allows your team to use variable data to create unique prints (like these serialized decals). Wow your customers with your experience, craftsmanship and innovation, and they won’t want to do it without you.

Clinging to Creativity: Whole Foods Raises the Bar on In-Store Décor
Posted on by Raven Chapman Posted in Technology & Products
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Clinging to Creativity: Whole Foods Raises the Bar on In-Store Décor

Known for its creative and colorful signage, Whole Foods’ South Region has a four-person team of artists dedicated to the creation of innovative décor. Anyone who has visited one of their locations is familiar with the vibrant, modern signs and advertisements. And with its in-house printing facilities, this store is an enthusiastic customer of both the LexJet Promo-Point Window Cling and Decals.

jar labels“The teams love them,” says graphic artist Whitney Harlos at the Chapel Hill location, “They’re perfect for patches on signage for when the artist isn’t here, custom signage on glass and mirrored fixtures, chalkboard materials of all sizes, and low-temp coolers.”

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This Seattle Framing Company Is Going Big with the Epson P20000
Posted on by Shellie Terry Posted in Case Studies & Profiles
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This Seattle Framing Company Is Going Big with the Epson P20000

Mary Song of the Seattle-based NW Art + Framing knows a thing or two about printing. A photographer and print coordinator, she oversees the fulfillment of custom and commercial orders for a variety of clients throughout the Northwest. In fact, the company handles printing for three sets of stores, which include the flagship NW Art + Framing, Frame Central, Museum Quality Framing and Beard’s Framing.

“Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we’ll fulfill 10,000 orders,” Song says. “We get 150-foot custom rolls, and we’ll go through four of them a day.”

NW Art + Framing prints for hospitality, healthcare and commercial clients.
NW Art + Framing prints for hospitality, healthcare and commercial clients.

That’s a lot of media for fine and framed art, metal prints, canvas and much more. To handle the workload, the facility houses nine printers, mostly Epson, including the recent purchase of the Epson SureColor P20000 64-inch printer, pictured above in action.

“The P20000 is helpful for large canvas and art prints,” Song says. “We have a demand for it, and everyone is going larger.”

The demand, she says, was specifically for large fine art, coated prints that weren’t latex-specific. The P20000 was specifically designed for high-production photographic and fine art printing with all new UltraChrome PRO inks, including four levels of grays. To ensure the color reproduction was up to par, Song but it through a rigorous test: her own work.

“As a photographer, I didn’t trust people to print for me,” Song says. “When we got the P20000 in, the first image I printed was one of mine, so I could see how good it was. The definition in the images was fantastic. The image has sepia tones, which is difficult to print, but right out of the box without profiles, it was spot-on. I couldn’t be happier.”

Since Song started with NW a year and a half ago, the company has doubled the number of its printers in effort to bring all print jobs in-house. “We really wanted to get the profit inside our building,” she says. That also meant that she and her team had to work faster, which was another selling point for the P20000.

“We needed a faster turn-around time, and this machine is faster,” she says. After considering some other less-expensive, older-model printers on the market, she chose to go with the P20000. “I said: If we’re going to invest in new technology, let’s invest in what’s the newest, not something that would be outdated within a few years.”

The company is also considering purchasing a SureColor P10000 44-inch printer, which uses the same ink set as the P20000, which will save on storage space and maintenance, she says, as well as delivering the consistency she expects. “Nothing beats Epson’s color or quality,” Song says. “Epson is by far one of the best printer companies out there.”

Getting Started with In-House Printing: The Advantages, Challenges & Lessons Learned
Posted on by Vincent Bejar Posted in Tips & Tricks
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Getting Started with In-House Printing: The Advantages, Challenges & Lessons Learned

So, you’re thinking about bringing wide-format printing in-house? With today’s print technologies and the outstanding quality they offer, it’s hard to resist the many benefits of bringing wide-format printing in-house. Plus, wide-format printing is in demand now more than ever.

Even with the tremendous growth of online digital content, wide-format print will always remain relevant as we live in a world where every product or brand attempts to garner more attention than the next.  But are there any pitfalls in bringing wide-format printing in-house?  Let’s look at whether printing in-house with wide-format is right for you.

Advantages of bringing wide-format printing in-house:

Capabilities – Printing wide-format in-house can open a plethora of opportunities depending on what your wants and needs are. In-house print operators running wide-format printers can produce everything from product packaging, proofing, retail/point-of-purchase signage to fine-art reproduction just to name a few.

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Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Case Studies & Profiles
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Prints that Win: As Long as One Man Believes

Photo by Amy Feick

An expert portrait photographer – primarily weddings and seniors – Amy Feick won a Sunset Print Award at the PPA Northeast District competition for an image outside her expertise.

Feick, owner of Twin Shutterbug Studios in Port Huron, Mich., successfully translated her eye for the human portrait to a portrait of the interior of an abandoned church in Detroit. The title of her image of the crumbling edifice, As Long as One Man Believes, references the lone chair set in a cavernous background; a reminder that this once beautiful church housed hundreds of worshippers.

“I think it’s the emotion of a place falling apart that should be sacred, but it’s not. I looked online after the photo shoot and saw what the church looked like prior to its abandonment, and in less than five years it had been scavenged and stripped out. In general, that’s what’s happened in much of Detroit,” explains Feick. “I was there with a group of photographers, one of whom is an urban explorer, and there happened to be an opening at a door that someone had broken down, so we went in. I liked the angle of the inside of the church and shot on a tripod I lowered to the floor, using a wide-angle lens to capture both the floor and the ceiling.”

Feick used only natural light coming through the windows and processed it using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro and did some dodging and burning to bring some areas out and dampen down others. “It was sort of monochromatic anyway, but in black-and-white it’s very simple and pulls you toward the lone chair in the middle, which kind of got lost in the color,” says Feick.

The final touch was the presentation on Sunset Photo eSatin Paper, printed with Feick’s nearly brand-new Canon iPF6400S inkjet printer. Since it was printed on Sunset inkjet media, Feick receives an iPad Air, in addition to the Sunset Print Award trophy, pin and gift certificate.

“I’ve been printing my own work for about two months. I was against doing my own printing for years because I didn’t feel like I could create the right color and look. A friend convinced me to try it, and I like it better: I like the saturation, color and detail I get printing my own work,” explains Feick. “I love it; I can send it to the printer and someone can pick up their print in five minutes.”

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Case Studies & Profiles
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Building Business with In-House Inkjet Printing and Samples at Arc Studios

Printing Promotional Graphics with an Inkjet PrinterAaron Thomason, owner of Arc Studios Photography in Dalton, Ga., knows the value of a print. It’s what helps showcase and sell his artistic portrait photography.

With a variety of inkjet-printable media from which to choose through LexJet, Thomason is able to present his work in a variety of formats, each with its own unique look.

“I don’t have to do any advertising other than the promotional printing I do for my studio and storefront. I can place a banner stand next to the street so people driving by can see it, so I get a lot of people stopping in who saw it when they drove or walked by the studio,” says Thomason. “I typically use a big image with just a few simple words so that my studio is in the back of their mind when they need something I can provide.”

For banner stands, Thomason uses a LexJet Blizzard Outdoor Stand with LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Polypropylene, and on his storefront windows he uses Photo Tex Repositionable Fabric. “I change those images up regularly and they work great. They see some rain and other weather, but the images have held up fine,” says Thomason.

Printing Promotional Graphics Inkjet PrinterOn the inside of the studio, Thomason showcases canvas gallery wraps printed on either LexJet Sunset Reserve Bright Matte Canvas or LexJet Sunset Production Matte Canvas, and Photo Tex for wall murals.

He also uses LexJet Sunset Photo Metallic Paper for images that lend themselves to the pearlescent pop of the paper.

“Before I started doing my own printing I was lucky if I sold one canvas print per session. Now I’m able to sell three or four canvases per portrait client since I was able to bring the price down by doing it in-house,” explains Thomason. “We stretch the canvas here on a 1 1/2″ frame and add the UV coating, so I’m able to produce canvas less expensively for my customers, deliver it on time and ultimately sell more canvas.”