Soft Signage Options for All Printer Technologies

Recent reports show that the demand for soft signage has seen double-digit growth in the last few years. That means you need options to create fabric banners, signs and exhibit graphics that work with the equipment and printer technology you own.

And while some fabrics may cost more for, say, trade show booth graphics, the upsell to your customer is that they can use fabric graphics more than once, and they’re less expensive to ship and stand up to traveling better than heavier, easily damaged options.

Let your customers know that the higher cost buys them easier installations that are foldable, reusable and even wrinkle resistant. Plus, they look more high-end and will drape more elegantly than vinyls or films they’ve used in the past.

So, in effort to make soft signage and printable fabrics more accessible to you, we’ve collected a list of products, based on printer type and application to streamline your search:

Latex

EnduraFab Textiles

Fabric solutions for Latex printers have hit the market in recent years, including the EnduraFab line of products, which are finished with a proprietary coating made specifically to work with Latex inks, while providing durability and a soft hand to the fabric. EnduraFab Stretch is a great option for SEG frames (or sew-less frames like SignComp). Check out this video review from HP’s Timothy Mitchell on how EnduraFab performs on Latex. For hanging banners and other indoor soft signage, try HP Light Fabric, for brilliant prints that stand up to creasing and wrinkling — now available at a reduced price.

Aqueous

LexJet Water-Resistant Satin Cloth

You don’t need dye-sub to create great-looking fabric signage. You can get it done with an aqueous printer and the right printable textiles. For everything from banners to backlits to signage, LexJet Water-Resistant Satin Cloth is a lightweight option that is finished with a coating that will hold high levels of ink saturation and maintaining its water resistance. One of our customers says: “The cloth is very durable! The fabric holds the colors well, and can easily be folded to fit into convenient packaging for transport. Any creases or wrinkles can be quickly reduced with a light ironing upon arrival.” For a slightly heavier, versatile fabric, consider LexJet FlexTek 170g, an aqueous-compatible, budget-beating option that can be finished with either grommets or sewing, and works indoors our out. It also works well as an alternative to canvas, and wraps easily on stretcher bars.

Solvent/Eco-Solvent

We’ve got the versatile LexJet FlexTek SUV 200g in a solvent-compatible version, as well. Great for outdoor projects, and a cost-friendly option for banners and gallery wraps. For a lighter-weight option for backlit displays or trade show graphics, check out LexJet Poly Select Light SUV. The tight weave and satin finish give it an elegant finish that looks great in retail spaces or even for décor items.

Dye-Sublimation

Teardrop flags.

Tried-and-true printed fabric results are traditionally achieved with dye-sub, and now we offer Fisher Textiles in wide-format widths. We’ve got a full portfolio of Fisher Textiles to choose from for a variety of projects, but we wanted to highlight 4019 Nirvana BOB for its award-winning soft knit fabric that’s coated with a black backing, so you get the lightweight fabric with excellent opacity and flame resistance certification. If you’ve got requests for the popular teardrop flags, there’s no better option than Fisher Textiles 1701 Primary Flag.

For even more fabric ideas that match your printer technology, call a LexJet specialist at 800-453-9538 and grow your soft signage business, too!

Epson S-Series Printers: Don’t Miss Out on Décor Opportunities

In the everchanging world of POP and temporary signage, there is a niche market that many print service providers have missed: décor. If you have an EPSON SureColor S80600, you know the color gamut is unlike any other printer available in the solvent market. With 98.2% Pantone coverage, color-critical art reproductions and wall décor are as easy to produce as banners and signage.

When it comes to creating the perfect art piece, it’s not just about the printer. These days, many people want their home décor to offer the same sophisticated ambiance of a fine art museum. To recreate that look, Print Service Providers turn to a printable canvas, such as EPSON GS Canvas Gloss and GS Canvas Satin, that can be quickly and easily finished with stretcher bars for the perfect, personal masterpiece.

With the introduction of the Epson S-Series printers came the debut of reformulated GS ink. The quick-drying UltraChrome GS3 inks don’t require a protective coating, which means PSPs can offer a quick turnaround on the production of these high-end requests – turning an idea into gallery wrap in one day.

The ability to work with a print immediately is important, especially with time-sensitive jobs. Josh King of Sacramento Giclee says that using his S80600 has improved his turn-around time. “We used to have to print one day, let it dry for a day, spray coat it one day, and let it dry before we could stretch it. Now, with the SureColor printer, within an hour, I can stretch a canvas,” says King.

Of course, what is a masterpiece without a perfect showcase? Having canvas prints professionally wrapped can be an expensive endeavor, which is why many of LexJet’s clients are using GOframe Stretcher bars to create gallery wraps for their customers.

The purpose of décor is to add warmth to a space. By creating personalized art pieces for your clients, you are not only offering them a print, you are helping them turn a house into a home.

Printer Review: Epson Solvent S-Series One Year Later

Last year I wrote a review describing my initial experience with the newest Epson Solvent SureColor S-Series printer, the S60600. You may recall that I could not find anything negative to write about it.

Well, I figured one year and hundreds of prints later is a good time to give everyone an update on these solvent printers. On our tech support floor, we run more than 25 different wide format machines. We typically use them to run profiles for each printer/product combination. There are times when we print on both the Epson S60600 and the Epson S80600 continuously five days straight. But the next month, we’ll only use the once or twice a week.

As a testing facility, we are a very odd user since we will have spells of not using a machine for some time, but that makes our situation prime for a review that is ideal to satisfy both types of users.

Finding a Competitive Advantage for Poster Printing

Poster Printing
Productive Displays, Addison, Ill., was able to print high-quality posters cost-effectively with Sunset Photo Satin SUV.

There are certain volumes for poster printing where digital inkjet printing simply can’t compete with offset or screen printing. However, those volume numbers, and the margin where such projects are profitable, inch higher for digital printing companies as time goes by.

Inkjet Poster PrintingBruce Ulrich, president of Productive Displays in Addison, Ill., reports that with the addition of LexJet Sunset Photo Satin SUV 275g, that volume number where his company can compete for poster jobs with offset and screen printing is near 1,000.

“Typically, where we compete most effectively for this type of work is in the 1-800 piece range. Once we go over 1,000 pieces I would need another 20-30 percent off the cost,” says Ulrich. “We used another product in the past, but it was much more expensive. I needed to find an option that would give us at least another 40-50 percent off the cost of producing posters.”

Ulrich found that option with LexJet with Sunset Photo Satin SUV 275g. Moreover, Productive Displays is able to provide a higher-quality, sharper and more color-accurate poster. Sunset Photo Satin SUV is also instant-dry, so that production of multiple-run posters can move quickly and smoothly using the company’s Mimaki JV3 solvent printers.

Inkjet Poster PrintingThe job pictured here for Dish Network is an excellent example as it required three versions with 100 prints of each version. Variable-data print projects, where there are multiple versions of the same print, continues to become more commonplace, fitting nicely into a wide-format digital print company’s wheelhouse.

“With most customers, they’ll come back and ask me for the price for three versions, five versions or ten versions. When they say that to the offset or screen print companies there’s a setup charge. I try to explain to them that where our favorable cost situation comes into play is that it doesn’t matter how many versions they want, the price per poster won’t change,” explains Ulrich. “The client was very pleased with the look and quality of the posters. The Sunset product will allow us to compete more cost-effectively against the offset and screen print companies for poster-related projects.”

Hole in One with a Custom Golf Ball Print on a Tire Cover

Tire cover graphics

Every so often, that oddball project walks into the shop that allows you to test new materials and production methods. In the case pictured here, it was a golf ball project for a customer’s tire cover on the back of their Hummer.

The challenge was the surface of the tire cover, which wasn’t the typical soft vinyl or fabric, but a semi-rigid, slick, pebbled surface that would be difficult for a typical vinyl graphics application. This project drove to FastSigns – Airway in El Paso and gave manager Alan Russell an excuse to test LexJet’s Simple MTS Adhesive Vinyl.

Russell says that he had already begun experimenting with the high-tack vinyl designed for multi-textured surfaces on the floors of a local industrial complex, Mallory Manufacturing Company, but also gets the call for off-the-wall applications to slick and textured surfaces on the sides of Porta Potties and trash cans.

Applying graphics to a tire cover“The tire cover is a low-energy plastic with a real nasty pebble-grained texture that nothing sticks to,” explains Russell. “The wrinkle for us was that they had Armor-All’d the crap out of it. We used Simple Green and a scrub brush so that it wasn’t so shiny and slick. Then, after we did that two or three times, we applied alcohol to the surface and let it dry to prepare it for the graphics.”

The golf ball image was printed on a Mimaki JV33 solvent printer, laminated with an optically-clear cast vinyl, and die cut to its 36″ x 36″ circular dimensions. Then, Russell put some reference marks on the tire cover to align the graphics, put the tire cover on the board to give it more rigidity for application and applied the graphic.

“We didn’t use application tape; we just laid it in the middle of the tire cover. We didn’t have it perfectly aligned the first time, so we just popped it up, repositioned it and squeegeed it with a normal squeegee,” explains Russell. “We used a rivet brush with the backing paper on top to protect the graphic and just brushed it into the cover; we didn’t use any heat. The edges laid out smooth, flat and gorgeously and we just hung it back on the truck. He took it to Colorado and it still looks great.”

Originally, the client wanted to wrap the entire cover, but Russell discouraged that concept since he felt a wrap would be much more difficult, thus more expensive for the client, and it would simply look better in the middle of the cover. Russell was right, as the golf ball stands out surrounded by the black of the tire cover.

“The image quality of the Simple MTS was as good if not better than most vinyl we’ve used. It has more of a matte vinyl look and feel, and that’s why it takes the ink much better, especially with solvent printers. It die-cut the first time perfectly and laminated beautifully, plus the fact that it’s fairly thick it lays like a 2×4; the thicker it is, the easier it is for my staff to apply. When you throw a laminate on it you’re at around 7 mils, which is why it applied so nicely without tape. For those relatively flat applications, like Porta-Potties and floors, it’s perfect,” says Russell. “In real life it looks even more three dimensional; it’s very deceiving. It was perfect, and the black of the tire cover trimmed it out nicely. We also added a slight grey outline to blend it into the cover.”

Clearing the Air

The Predator 600 Portable Air Scrubber helps maintain a safe and clean work environment and can actually help speed production.

Solvent printing was a godsend to the wide-format printing industry. While it would be a boon for the outdoor-durable print, it would bring its own set of health and environmental issues. The early solvent inks were just short of running uranium through the printer; just ask anyone who went to a trade show in the early part of this century and had an opportunity to breathe in the fumes. But since the introduction of solvent inks, the formulations have evolved to be less noxious, smelly, and flammable.

Though many of these newer solvents are milder, and are sometimes referred to with the misnomer eco, they still contain ingredients that can be harmful to those who operate them. If you check the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for substances that are potentially harmful to humans, including carcinogens, you needn’t look far. But never fear, since the effects of solvent fumes and outgassing can be greatly mitigated by taking the appropriate steps. Moreover, you can do the environment a favor by taking proper care in the disposal of your ink waste.