Features

Rod Fisher,
MD, Print-Leeds
http://www.print-leeds.co.uk

What’s having the greatest impact on your business at the moment?
New technology. Our investment in the latest technology has increased productivity and impacted on the bottom line increasing profitability significantly.

Sign & Digital UK, the leading trade exhibition for the sign making and wide format printing industry, returns in 2015 with more than 180 of the sector’s biggest name suppliers, including Hewlett-Packard, Roland DG, Canon UK, Hybrid Services/Mimaki, Colourgen/Mutoh, Fujifilm, Agfa Graphics, Esko and many more.

The wide-format digital print sector is not particularly well represented by print industry trade bodies. Is that because more from the sector need to join up and make their voices heard? Bettine Pellant, new CEO of Picon, argues the case for membership to trade associations.

Say what you like about trade associations, but the UK has a lot of them. A quick Google search led me to one list containing well over 300 organisations, from the Adhesive Tape Manufacturers Association to the Zinc Development Association. Such volume and variety point to the perennial need businesses of all sizes have to seek strength in numbers, to build a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

The digitally printed textiles market is growing, but is if for you? Nessan Cleary reports on the latest technological developments for textile print.

The basic concept of using dye-sublimation to transfer digital inkjet prints to textiles has been around for ages, but we’ve seen considerable growth in this area in the last couple of years, as evidenced by the growing number of dye-sub printers and emergence of several niche trade shows.

Can the Cloud be used to centralise colour management for wide-format printers? Nessan Cleary investigates what vendors are doing to make it viable.

With an increasing number of services being offered through the Cloud, from file storage through to MIS, so it’s no surprise to find that some vendors in the print space are also offering colour management services from the Cloud.

Epson’s T-series aqueous ink printers are aimed at the crossover point between technical drawings and graphics. Nessan Cleary tests the printer to see how well it performs.

So far in this test series we've tried a number of solvent and UV-curable printers, and even a couple of latex machines, but this is the first time that we've looked at an aqueous ink printer. The T-series is Epson's latest wide-format offering and aims to bridge the crossover point between CAD and graphics. As such the emphasis is on value for money rather than image quality, though it's got some nice features.

This Roland roll-fed UV printer promises the freedom to print to a wide range of media, but does it live up to this? Nessan Cleary asked user Jason Pavlou, managing director of Giraffe Press.

It’s easy to think of UV machines as being for rigid materials and solvents for flexibles but there is a class of UV roll-fed printers that can cope with a wide range of different substrates. These printers are more expensive than their solvent counterparts but their prints cure to a tough finish without the need for lamination and the freedom to use less standard media can lead to a wider range of applications. This is the thinking that led Roland to develop its VersaUV LEC printers. And it's also the reason that Jason Pavlou, managing director of Giraffe Press, bought one back in the summer of 2013.

Jo Bentley of Contra Vision explains why it is seeking further collaboration with printers as it targets new creative markets.

Contra Vision transforms glass into opportunities for advertising, branding, architectural expression, one-way privacy and solar control; with 30 years of pioneering inventions, it has developed see through graphic products suitable for all locations. Reaching out to creatives - including designers, advertising agencies, architects and interior designers - is a key component in its strategy to help grow the market for see-through graphics and extend their knowledge of what is possible through print.