Dew the Graphics

 

Dew Downtown Flagstaff Signs
One of hundreds of signs and banners produced by the P.O.P. shop at Nackard Companies for Dew Downtown Flagstaff hangs in front of the main event.

Dew Downtown Flagstaff is gaining momentum, thanks in no small part to the work of Nackard Companies, a regional beverage distributor based in Flagstaff. Nackard Companies and its P.O.P. shop crank out hundreds of banners, signs and displays to brand the event while it’s in full swing and to promote it beforehand.

Dew Downtown Flagstaff BannersNow in its third year, the annual ski and snowboard festival is based around a slopestyle course on San Francisco Street in downtown Flagstaff.

As the event has grown, so has the number of tents and activities that surround the course. So, of course, the number of graphics required for the event has grown. Steve Lalio, P.O.P. shop manager for Nackard Companies estimates that they printed about three times more banners and signs for this year’s event than they did for the event’s inaugural in 2012.

Dew Downtown Flagstaff Fabric Banners
These banners leading into the slopestyle course at Dew Downtown Flagstaff were printed on LexJet Poly Select Heavy fabric.

“We printed about 40 banners just in one day. The event has really gotten a lot bigger in three years. There were about 20,000 people at the even this year; even my cousins came up from Albuquerque to see it,” says Lalio.

Dew Downtown took place the weekend of Feb. 8-9. Mild weather leading up to the event meant that most of the snow was man-made, though it snowed a few inches during setup the day before.

Dew Downtown Flagstaff Medals
Nackard Companies even provided the medals, which were printed on LexJet Extreme AquaVinyl. The backdrop was printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene and applied to Coroplast.

Most of the signage was printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Polypropylene, laminated with LexJet 3 Mil Luster UV Standard Low Melt. Graphics applied to metal and Coroplast were printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene. A smattering of other banners and flags were printed on LexJet Poly Select Heavy Fabric, and all the graphics were printed with a Canon iPF8000S inkjet printer.

Show off Your Best Work in SGIA’s Golden Image Awards Competition

SGIA Golden Image AwardsThere’s a lot to be said for winning an award for your work, particularly in an international competition. It’s great for PR and lends additional credibility when you give a pitch to prospects.

Therefore, it would be wise to consider entering SGIA’s Golden Image Awards, especially if you used LexJet products to achieve your masterpiece (hint). There are lots of chances to be recognized with about 50 categories available in which to enter.

Many of the categories are specific to screen printing, but many of them include digital inkjet applications, like Transit Advertising, Vehicle Wraps, Wallpaper, Posters, Plastic Products, Fine Art, Carpets/Rugs, Banners, Back-lighted Signs/Displays, and even Greeting Cards.

The deadline for entries is Oct. 11, and all submissions will be displayed in the Golden Image Gallery at the SGIA Expo in Orlando, Oct. 23-25. According to SGIA, winners gain international acclaim and every entrant is considered for the Best of Show (digital and screen printing categories) and Best in Creativity (digital printing).

Judges, who were chosen based on their technical skills, experience and knowledge in the categories, will evaluate the contenders on specific criteria, including: image definition, job complexity, registration and overall impression.

“This is a great opportunity for companies to compete against the best in the specialty imaging community and display their work to thousands of Expo attendees,” says Johnny Shell, SGIA’s vice president of technical services.

The Golden Image Awards are open only to SGIA printer members, who get one free entry; each additional entry is $30.

For more information, and to enter and manage your entries, click here.

For a list of categories, click here.

For competition entry rules, click here.

Better Together: 20% off Quick-Change Banner Stand and Blockout Inkjet Fabric

Banner stands and inkjet fabricStarting today and ending on Dec. 31, save 20 percent on both the Expand M2 retractable banner stand and LexJet Poly Select Blockout Fabric when you purchase them together.

These two new products are the perfect combination for all kinds of displays, including point-of-purchase, trade show graphics, backdrop graphics, presentations, and more.

The Expand M2 retractable banner stand, which comes with a lifetime warranty, allows you to change out graphics quickly and easily without tools in less than a minute. It accommodates a 33 7/16″ width and the telescoping pole is adjustable from 63″ to 88 5/8″ high.

LexJet Poly Select Blockout Fabric is a 14-mil bright-white polyester fabric with a blockout layer that provides 100 percent opacity. Compatible with aqueous and latex inks, the fabric lays flat, minimizing edge curl and making it easy to work with in production.

The water-resistant coating provides exceptional imaging quality with a wide color gamut and higher ink saturation for rich, brilliant, eye-catching color.

This promotion is not available online, so contact a LexJet customer specialist at 800-453-9538 to take advantage of this limited-time offer.

Cautious Optimism in the Exhibit Market

Trade show graphics inkjet mediaAccording to a survey published in the latest issue of EXHIBITOR Magazine, exhibit companies and trade show coordinators are cautiously optimistic about 2011 and 2012, meaning that graphics providers should be at least as cautiously optimistic as they are.

When asked if their company would increase, decrease or maintain their trade show budgets in 2011, 26.8 percent said they will increase, 18.4 percent will decrease, 52.1 percent will maintain and 2.6 percent didn’t know either way. Moreover, 18.7 percent of companies surveyed for the magazine’s 2011 Economic Outlook survey said they would increase their graphics budget, 17.6 percent would decrease, 58.2 percent would maintain and 5.5 percent didn’t know.

The strongest margins between a budget increase and decrease in the survey are found in the overall marketing budget: 33.9 percent said they will increase, 11.7 percent will decrease, 49.4 percent will maintain and 5 percent were unsure.

So, at least according to the survey, there are further opportunities outside of providing exhibit graphics that you should explore with your customers and potential customers. With the increasing media fragmentation, more graphics buyers are looking for ways to push their product directly to consumers, either at the point of sale or at some alternative face-to-face venue, such as special events.

If you need any help identifying potential markets and customers, as well as finding the right inkjet media for the application to make a big splash, contact a LexJet account specialist at 800-453-9538.

LexJet Enhances, Simplifies PSA Laminate Line: Performance, Elite, Specialty

Laminates for trade shows and displaysLexJet has updated its line of PSA laminates and backers to provide a practical way for print shops to produce and sell laminated large format inkjet solutions to their customers, and provide added value for added profits.

“We’ve taken our 17 years of experience developing inkjet media, laminates and backers, as well as crucial input and advice from our customers, to give them a product line they can sell and depend upon,” says LexJet product manager Dione Metnick. “The whole point of a laminate is to enhance and protect the graphic, and exceed the end user’s design and visual expectations. We used that criteria as our baseline, then built our laminates and backers to eliminate costly color shifts and adhesive failures for the dependability and consistency our customers require.”

Conveniently grouped into three basic product categories – Performance, Elite and Specialty – print shops have a simple yet diverse choice of superior laminates not available elsewhere in various thicknesses, base materials, textures and widths. The adhesives in all three product lines are compatible with aqueous, low solvent, solvent, UV curable and latex inks.

“I have never noticed any discoloration with a LexJet laminate, as opposed to others I’ve seen that tend to yellow over time or give the graphic a different tint,” says Christian Schmid of Essyx Design + Fabrication, Johnson City, Tenn. “When our customers invest in graphics they don’t want them damaged, either by UV or people handling them, so we make sure we give them the peace of mind that comes with a more durable, brighter laminate.”

Performance: The industry’s best-in-class economically priced line of laminates and backers. Like all LexJet products, they come with a 30-day money back guarantee and are built to last. Most products in the Performance line feature the same high-quality adhesives and base materials as the Elite line.

Specialty: This product line was designed based on customer feedback for warranted, durable laminates that meet all the demands of specialty applications, including floor, carpet, vehicle wrap, optically clear and dry-erase.

Elite: Offers the highest possible performance and quality that exceeds the durability and visual expectations of end users. Most products in the Elite line come with a Lifetime Warranty, while all of them feature the most durable solvent acrylic adhesive in the industry and PreLume, an optical reflection technology built into the Elite laminates that ensures brighter and cleaner white areas for a longer period of time. PreLume Inside means greater contrast and dynamic range, producing graphics that stand out and grab the attention of passersby in a variety of indoor applications.

PreLume, licensed by LexJet in 2003, is only one innovation in a long line of innovations since LexJet introduced the first reverse-print polycarbonate (LexJet Clear) to the graphics market in 1994. Since that time LexJet pioneered the first white backer to partner with LexJet Clear, the first polycarbonate laminate guaranteed not to tunnel or delaminate, the next generation of solvent acrylic mounting adhesives, new adhesives resistant to and compatible with solvent and UV-curable inks and the first Lifetime Warranty, to name just a few.

Whether your graphic is short-term, long-term or somewhere in between, with LexJet’s updated and enhanced line of laminates and backers you have a variety of options to choose from that no one else in the industry offers… Proven, quality laminates in a variety of thicknesses, finishes and base materials to protect and enhance your graphic, eliminating costly color shifts and adhesive failures… Guaranteed. 

Inkjet Printing Workflow: Tiling Images for a Large Display

There are two methods for tiling images to create a large display. First, you can use software like Adobe InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop to crop the image down into individual sections for print. However, the easiest and most efficient way I have found to do this for printing is in a RIP software.

Here, I want to cover an 18-ft. wide x 80-in. tall wall. I'm printing on a 36-in. wide roll of media, so I need six tiles of 36 in. x 80 in. to complete the graphic.

Tiling is a pretty common task for the signage industry, so RIPs for that industry seem to handle tiling best. If you’re running Onyx, for example, you have a lot of control over how you tile large images.

ImagePrint, which is more geared toward photographic and fine-art printing, has a more simplistic version of tiling that will also allow you to perform this task. Think of the sign industry RIPs as more industrial for large production runs, and ImagePrint as more custom, for shorter runs in a photographic/fine-art workflow.

In ImagePrint, you simply fill the tiles with the image you plan on breaking up into panels, and hit print. It's that easy!

Either way, a RIP will make all the difference in the world for the quality of your images, and the efficiency and profitability of your workflow, including tiling large images together.