New Technology, Products, Software, & Services
ALL SECTORS ADAPTING THEIR BUSINESS MODELS A preview of topics: wide format, signage and apparel By Cary Sherburne & Richard Romano
B
e sure to sign up for our Technology Outlook Week Webinars May 17th21st at whattheythink.com/webinars The Wide Format, Signage and Apparel Webinar will take place Thursday, May 20 at 1 p.m. ET, and will be presented by Richard Romano and Cary Sherburne. Here’s a preview of some of the items we will discuss.
Wide Format and Signage General trends in wide format and signage since our last Technology Outlook Week have been almost exclusively COVID and safety signagerelated. They include: ● Policy Communication. As businesses and other venues reopen, signage communicating policies regarding mask wearing, social distancing, etc., has been required. Floor graphics/distancing dots have proliferated and new materials and overcoatings have helped improve the durability of these graphics. ● Vaccinations. Vax sites have required their own wayfinding and other related signage. As IRL events start to take place later this year, there will be demand for COVID-related signage at individual venues. Print businesses that have been waiting for their eventsand travel-centered customers to ramp back up are going to have a very good 2021. It’s unclear what policies regarding proof of vaccination (or so-called “vaccination passports”) are going to be required, and while much consternation has arisen regarding potential governmental policy, the fact remains that it will be individual venues and/or events coordinators who will set specific requirements. ● Back to Work. As businesses bring their employees back from the work-at-home experiment, it’s also unknown what kinds of vaccination requirements they may set for employees.
18
18-20_WF_TechWeek.indd 18
Regardless, signage will be required to communicate whatever policies emerge, which will likely (or should) be integrated into an office’s environmental graphics. ● Celebration Time! Last year at this time, we saw an emergence of celebratory lawn signage honoring graduates and other student achievements. As we write this in early April, we have started to see “Class of 2021” signs start to bloom on residential lawns. Whether these will be as in-demand as they were last year remains to be seen, but a sign shop or display graphics provider can make a nice chunk of change offering these kinds of signs; all it takes is one or two houses on a block to put one out and others in the neighborhood will often follow suit. As for recent new technologies and product announcements, late 2020 and early 2021 may have been a little slow compared to some previous years, but that could just indicate a relative maturity of the wide-format equipment market. As we have been seeing, even pre-pandemic, there have not been too many major technological innovations in the wide-format equipment sphere. Major introductions have predominantly focused on filling in gaps in vendor portfolios. Flatbed printers have seen some tweaks to things like board feeding and vacuum tables, the goal being to complement improvements in print speed with faster on- and off-boarding. Across the board, speed improvements are top improvements. Here are some quick hits of what the past six months or so have Agfa Jeti Tauro brought us. H3300 UHS Agfa has launched the (bull sold separately). Jeti Tauro H3300 UHS, a 3.3-meter LED hybrid aimed at the high end of
WhatTheyThink - Printing News | May 2021
4/15/21 9:15 AM
