Features

With Fespa 2015 done and dusted, Nessan Clearly reports on what it highlighted in terms of wide-format inkjet technology development and trends.

Business writer Walter Hale takes a view on its relevance to wide-format PSP diversification.

Don’t believe the hype. We’ve all come across that cliché. It certainly applies to 3D printing - although not in the usual way.

The hype doesn’t come close to conveying the potentially disruptive power of 3D printing. Here is a technology that can make replacement body parts, cars, spare parts for the International Space Station and, in China, 10 new houses in 24 hours.

This kit is an optional addition rather than a printer in its own right, but it’s in an interesting process as Nessan Cleary finds out.

Most printers fit into an easily definable category, such as solvent or UV-curable, but for this month's test we've looked at a hybrid approach. The Colorific Lightbar is based around its UV Light ink, which is effectively a UV-curable ink in a solvent carrier - and thus promises to give the best of both technologies while eliminating their downsides.

Lesley Simpson joined over 300 PSPs in Belgium last month as Agfa attempted to wow them with its scale and scope. Here’s the upshot.

Ya?ar G?venen is the new president of Fespa. Here he sets out his stall in his own words.

Mark Bradley,
MD, Digital Imaging Services 
http://www.digital-is.co.uk

What’s having the greatest impact on your business at the moment?

DIS was founded in 1997 as a wide-format digital graphics company with no direct links to the traditional print areas of screen and litho.

Kevin Bray of K J Bray and Associates is the new environmental consultant to the Fespa UK Association. Here he asks if you should be delving deeper into rules and regulations governing the kit you discard.

It has become clear to me over the past few years that there are many in our industry who, perhaps through oversight, and hopefully only through oversight, do not comply with all so-called ‘Producer Responsibility’ legislation. From the outside, many of these regulations can seem somewhat esoteric and arcane, so non-compliance is often not entirely deliberate, but happens because it is easier to see them as someone else’s problem or responsibility. But it’s not.

As a wide-format PSP that runs a W2P service, the Simpson Group is well placed to offer advice on how to successfully integrate the offering. The group’s online print manager Rachel Tait explains.

Raccoon, in Kent, has been going since 1992 and has become synonymous with vehicle wrapping. But it is branching out. A few years ago it introduced Promohire - a promotional vehicle hire service. Now it’s launched www.bigprintfast.com for creatives and trade work. So why has such a specialist print company decided to diversify and is it yet paying off? I asked founder and MD Richard Clark.
By Lesley Simpson

Las Barrow keeps his poker face when asked what he thinks makes him a managerial ‘Leading Light’, which he undoubtedly is having turned a £2 stake in a new business venture back in the mid ‘60s into the £53m turnover Augustus Martin of today.

Peter Leyland,
MD, PDQ Print
http://www.pdqprint.co.uk

What’s having the greatest impact on your business at the moment?

There does seem to be a general upturn in business across the board - tongue-in-cheek there is not so much competition around.

How personalised T-shirts are in vogue thanks to the likes of YR Store’s interactive offering. Could you make a similar fashion statement?

YR Store’s interactive printed garment concept is catching the imagination of fashion retailers including the likes of Topshop and Selfridges. Now the system - that lets people create personalised clothing on easy-to-use touchscreen terminals then sends the finished design for printing within minutes via Epson SureColor printers - has global brands Nike and Google hooked.