Page 25 - Print21 magazine Sep-Oct 2022

Wide Format
be collected for a recycling treatment. Sustainability is an area of growth
in an otherwise mature market,
made more challenging by the rise of digital alternatives. Digital display advertising is taking a greater share of overall marketing budgets. While overall budgets increase, demand for print will also increase, albeit at a reducing share of the growing market.
Work harder
Print advertising must work harder to achieve impact. In sheetfed commercial print this means the use of special colours and effects to achieve standout. This will happen too in display printing. Inkjet white was once a colour option that few took up, except perhaps for those printing on clear films. The white ink was not very good and the need for multiple passes to achieve the required level of opacity slowed production significantly. It was a feature that was not promoted.
Now it is. Printing on MetPol provides the high impact surface with white providing a firm base to print CMYK colours on top. Opacity of white inks has improved so that production speeds can be close to normal.
“The need to print on more materials and the ability to open up new markets drives a demand for flatbed and innovation in the sector. The flatbed
is the platform for diversification.”
Highlight
fashion brands and cosmetics as well as signage and high impact stickers. The accuracy of flatbed printers
is also capable of printing lenticular
sheets, in some cases directly to
the reverse of the material using technology to improve on traditional methods of production.
The gamut-extending colours, whether neon or OGV (orange green violet), can be used to good effect on advertising, helping say cosmetics advertising really stand out, fashion advertising to pop, or luxury leather with reproduction of grain effects using the clear varnish.
Luxury Goods
The luxury goods market also points to a different direction for large format inkjet. When partnered with a flatbed cutting table, a flatbed
UV large format printer is an ideal tool for production of short run cartons. These might be a prototype or series of prototypes of cartons before a brand commits to a long production run, for a photo shoot
or test marketing in a focus group
or product launch. It might be a complete run of short run boxes for an e-commerce purpose, a run that will be too short for a litho press and on stock that is too awkward for a cutsheet digital press.
Much luxury packaging falls into this category, especially when personalisation can be included because the product has been purchased through a web store as a gift. Box board materials enable bespoke presentation boxes to
be printed without the need for lamination or separate sleeves.
Cartonboard
Conventional cartonboard is a far better diversification direction for most large format printers than corrugated board despite rising demand. Corrugated board is established for structural displays. It is light and it is strong. But it is also dirty and uneven and if trying to sell the graphical potential for inkjet printing, say for ecommerce applications, the client will not
be used to paying for this type of product. Then there is the challenge that the board is full of dust that
can damage print heads, and is unlikely to be completely flat for feeding and registration purposes. This is probably best left to machines designed for the purpose – flatbed inkjet presses of course. 21
these products and to check on print performance and durability. But they are coming because major brands do not want to be associated in any way with materials that lack impeccable environmental credentials.
Fabrics made from fibres from recycled PET bottles will tick all the boxes for sustainability and will be popular for indoor applications as an alternative to standard polyesters. These are themselves recyclable, which is one of the reasons for their use at the recent Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
All the stadium hoardings and
signage about the city was produced
without PVC by Hollywood Monster,
one of the city’s large format
specialists. It banned the use of PVC
three years ago and has not looked
back. The environmental stance
was crucial to winning the Games
contract. It did not produce the 7,000
flags draped from lampposts and
in the venues. These were printed
on a Vutek Fabric printer using
Pongs Supreme Fabric flag material,
another sustainable substrate At
the end of the Games, some of the
printed flags will be reused for other
international events while others will include posters for nightclubs,
Clear ink will follow in popularity, not only because of its ability to highlight an area of the image. Clear inks can create a 3D effect and gives a tactile finish for desktop displays and posters, if not for hoardings. The haptic effect encourages engagement (helped perhaps by a prominent QR code) and that increases retention
of the message conveyed. For non- standard items like floor graphics, which increased in popularity during the pandemic as a means to help keep people apart from each other, the clear varnish is both a protective element and can be a way to avoid a slippery surface.
Some of the large format suppliers are starting to offer fluorescent
and neon inks, led by Epson and swissQprint. The applications
Print21 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 25