Features

Have you a slick workflow that harnesses the full potential of your kit line-up or is there room for manoeuvre?

“When customers first look at investment they tend to focus on the biggest capital expense and how they expect that to add to their bottom line,” states Paul Bates, EskoArtwork regional business manager UK and Eire. “But what they often don’t consider is the added pressure this puts on all their departments and the potential bottlenecks this could introduce into their workflow.

If you’re not, you should be. As more print customers seek out suppliers that fit with their increasingly stringent environmental requirements, just offering recyclable products isn’t going to cut it. Here’s what HP environmental programme manager Stephen Goddard has to say on the issue.

The Birmingham-based wide-format signage and graphics service provider has transformed itself into a beast of a company, and here’s how.

The Forum of Private Business is calling for small firms’ patent rights to be better protected amid concerns that many cannot afford to sue companies which steal their ideas.

New work-based QCF NVQs have been developed for the print industry by print professionals. So will you be using them?

Should you get involved in textile print and will iT boost business? Here’s what some already involved in the process have to say about its impact on their operations.

Could Hollywood Monster’s links with design students bring a new energy and focus to large-format print?

Dispute resolution is becoming an increasing problem for print companies. Here, Philip Thompson, head of BPIF Business, explains what you can do to prevent problems from arising, and how to manage them once they have.

This is the fourth consecutive year that Image Reports has conducted the Widthwise Survey, asking printers of all sizes about business, market and technology issues. During the last four-year period, the large-format industry has been revolutionised by technology and economic turmoil. Since that shake-out, the pace of change hasn’t slowed but that change is typically now more incremental than transformational.

What ‘green’ demands are print kit manufacturers/suppliers being faced with from the UK’s LFP community, and what are they doing to meet them?

If you’re handling print for any of the big retailers you know how vital your ‘green’ credentials can be to winning, or losing, a job, and that the sustainability argument you put forward increasingly includes the environmental impact of the kit you run. So do you ask pertinent questions of the suppliers about the kit they sell before you buy it? And do you get satisfactory answers?

The display and signage market led the way but now other market segments are following in its wake, realizing the potential of digitally printed textiles and flying the flag for the UK.

Move over Laurence Llewellyn Bowen, we all have the ability to become interior designers now. Just take a look on the Internet and you will find a number of businesses offering you the ability to turn your illustrations, designs and photographs into curtains, cushions, shower curtains, roller blinds, huge canvas triptychs and more, so much more.

Sophie Matthews-Paul looks at how developments have impacted upon inks and substrates for digitally printed textiles.

Perhaps it became a myth as the years passed that a textile coming under the digital heading is a material that has been used in conjunction with a machine which can print inks or dyes specifically for fabrics. Where this misconception originated is anyone’s guess but, depending on the end application desired, there’s no reason why many applications can’t be produced using other chemistries.