WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

WHERE DOES WIDE-FORMAT AND SIGNAGE STAND

Demand- and technology-side drivers for 2022

By Richard Romano

In the year of our COVID 2020, wide-format printing was the saving grace of many a print service provider, who, with traditional vertical markets and customers shut down, turned to COVID-related signage as a stopgap measure to at least keep some of the lights on. Now that the pandemic has…well, not exactly ended, but at least ebbed to the point where shut-down markets are now open, where do wide-format printing and signage production stand? And what does the market look like for wide format and signage as we head into 2022?

We can identify some distinct trends and market drivers, dividing them into “demand side” and

“supply side” or “technology side.” First, let’s look at what is happening on the demand side.

Wide-format printing was obviously in high demand even before the pandemic, and while those new COVID-specific applications emerged in 2020, demand for COVID signage has waned, although not entirely disappeared. On a more macro level, the pandemic has had some specific effects on businesses— some good, some bad—which have some repercussions for signage and display graphics providers.

New Business Formation

It’s a post-pandemic phenomenon that The Economist called “bezonkers,” as in “New business formation in America goes bezonkers” (https:// econ.st/3FV8Gkv). See the chart of new business applications (Figure 1).

While some of these new businesses replaced those that failed during 2020, economists see it as one of the consequences of “The Great Resignation.” People taking stock of their lives and careers during the pandemic and pursuing a dream of business ownership, or at the very least of not being stuck in a job one hates. How much of this will persist beyond 2021/2022 remains to be seen.

However, according to Forbes (https://bit. ly/3G8dFP1), analyzing the July business application figures, still more encouraging is the reported rise in what the Census Bureau calls “high propensity applications,” by which it means those new businesses with a high likelihood of supporting a payroll. These, though only some one-third of total applications, also jumped some 1.2% from June’s level for the nation as a whole and had a similar regional pattern to applications overall, with the largest proportion in the South and the strongest monthly jumps in the Northeast and the West.

What does all this have to do with wide-format printing? New businesses need a lot of resources and other materials to get started, a lot of it involving various kinds of print, and often including signage and other kinds of display graphics, both interior and exterior. This presents opportunities for display graphics and signage producers.

However, what percentage of these businesses will be home-based, or at least not need the kinds of retail or office graphics a dedicated business

Figure 1. New Business Applications. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau)

Figure 1. Monthly Business Applications by NAICS Sector. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau)

location would require? Without a deep dive into the specific NAICS categories in which these businesses are forming, the best bet is to check your local or regional new business registrations. A good place to start—and this is fodder for future articles—is the “Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics” (https://bit.ly/3lPonlg), which does indeed break down new businesses by industry. We’re getting a little afield of the scope of this article, but suffice to say, the top sector for new business creation is “retail trade,” followed by “administrative and support.” (See Figure 2.)

Which also brings up a related issue…

Work From Home

It also still remains to be seen to what extent “work from home” will be a major factor as the pandemic recedes into the past (should it ever). Some statistics worth thinking about include (https://bit. ly/3voagGu): ● Upwork estimates that one in four Americans, over 26% of the American workforce, will be working remotely through 2021. They also estimate that 22% of the workforce (36.2 million Americans) will work remotely by 2025. ● Globally, 16% of companies are fully remote, according to an Owl labs study. This same study found that about 62% of workers aged 22 to 65 claim to work remotely at least occasionally. ● This study also found that 44% of companies do not allow remote work of any kind.

The point is, for all the talk of “work from home,” the office is not going away any time soon, although it certainly will change. In what way? No one is quite sure yet. Offices will probably be smaller, and we may be in store for a major downsizing of businesses as they seek smaller square-footage locations.

So the sign and display needs of businesses throughout the economy are going to be in a state of flux for the foreseeable future—and that’s not necessarily a bad thing for sign and display graphics providers. Probably not as much as had been anticipated in mid-2020, but these are changes that are worth staying on top of.

Which leads us to…

Construction and Architecture

One market that is inextricably linked to signage and display graphics is architecture and construction. As goes construction, so goes signage to a very great extent. As this issue was going to press, the International Sign Association (ISA) released its “Q3 Sign Industry Quarterly Economic Report” (https:// bit.ly/30Dn5Bw), and—first off—ISA’s analysts at IHS Markit expect that the supply chain issues that had been plaguing virtually every sector to start to clear up as we head into 2022. They also expect prices to come down.

“Paper and packaging prices are set to decrease in late 2021 and through 2022 as input costs fall. Globally, steel production is fully recovered and exceeds pre-COVID-19 output, allowing inventories to near being fully restocked. It is still going to get worse before it gets better, but price relief will come by late 2021 or early 2022.”

God willin’ and the COVID don’t rise, of course.

The IHS Markit analysts are not especially bullish on the architectural signage market. Read More…

“Nonresidential structures Find article at construction spending declined PrintingNews. during the second quarter [of com/21157428 2021], falling 11.5% y/y. The lower levels of activity in the structures market occurred primarily because of commercial construction declines of 12.4% y/y during the quarter. Driving the decline was the lodging component,

which fell 30.1% y/y.”

They anticipate the 2022 growth to be slightly under the prevailing growth rate trend.

So these were some demand-side trends that have been impacting wide-format, display and signage, and will continue to. What about technology trends?

Wide format is a pretty mature part of the print market, and has been for a while. We have seen few revolutionary new wide-format technologies in recent years, with most of the changes being more incremental, with faster speeds, better quality, a greater diversity of vendor product portfolios and different kind of inks and substrates.

Automation

We are finally seeing automation make serious inroads into wide-format printing, driven by the same factors that have driven the push towards automation in other sectors of the industry— namely, the need to get jobs in and out faster, labor shortages and the need to reduce human touchpoints. Software is playing a role, with nesting optimization having been a hot prepress software feature for a couple of years, but we have started to see more and more wide-format printers—typically flatbeds—support the ability to add robotics for automatic loading and/or unloading of boards.

The Canon Arizona series and the high-end Inca Onset have had this capability for a while, and recently EFI and Mimaki, to name two vendors, have explicitly cited the ability of their new printers to integrate directly with third-party robotics and other kinds of automation equipment. Robot arms don’t come cheap, but if demand starts to pick up and costs come down, we may see more wide-format shops arming themselves.

Improved productivity can also be achieved with some unique solutions. One is Canon’s FLOW technology used on its Arizona line of flatbeds. It comprises a zoneless vacuum system that applies suction only where it is required, regardless of how much of the table is covered or uncovered by media. At the same time, three-sided pneumatic registration pins allow edge-to-edge printing as well as the ability to align the substrate to either the left or right edge—or both edges—of the vacuum table. The result is the elimination of the need for masking, which can be a time-consuming part of wide-format production.

Environment

Environmental concerns are continuing to be important, as end users and customers increasingly want to green their own supply chains. This is mostly playing out in the consumables space, with more eco-friendly inks and especially substrates starting to hit the market. As more and more sign and display graphics providers move into markets like health care and education, they find the need to use compliant inks and substrates. Elsewhere, there really isn’t a mad rush to go green—price still remains of paramount importance—but sustainability is becoming a top-of-mind issue.

Ability to Branch into New Markets

For a while, wide format was the new market that commercial printers were urged to move into—and they did. Interestingly, we are now finding that the reverse is proving to be the case: shops that were predominantly wide-format-based are now starting to add small-format commercial print, doing this either via partnerships, acquisitions or buying the equipment (the same three strategies that commercial printers used to get into wide format).

Other markets also await. 3D printing has been lukewarmly received by print providers, but remains an untapped market for sign and display providers. Related to 3D is direct-to-object printing, and we are seeing UV LED units grow from small “benchtop” units to much larger devices that support larger and even heavier objects. The specialty printing market has been a high-growth area, and will continue to be a hotspot as better inks allow for direct inkjet printing on a greater range of materials with minimal fuss. As events start to come back, these kinds of items will be in greater demand.

Richard Romano has been writing about the graphic communications industry for 20 years. He is an industry analyst and author or coauthor of more than half a dozen books.

While packaging in all its various incarnations has been touted as the next great adventure for printers, our annual surveys have not found too many commercial or wide-format shops taking the plunge. There still remain vast opportunities for print businesses to produce short- (or shortish-) run packaging options for small and mid-sized product manufacturers. The advantage that wideformat shops have is that a lot of the equipment they already have—namely UV flatbed devices— are well-suited toward at least some kinds of packaging production, so it wouldn’t require a major investment in new equipment to at least dip a toe in the water, and then scale up if a packaging strategy takes off.

Into the New Year

As we found during the pandemic (and some found even before the pandemic), the ability to be versatile (or what Preston Herrin calls “agile”) can put shops in a position of being able to quickly adapt to a changing market—and we found in 2020 that things can change “in a New York minute.” This made good business sense at the best of times, and even better sense in the worst. It’s best to be prepared in either event. ●

THIS YEAR’S MODELS

Here is a rundown of some of the major product releases from 2021. For space reasons, we couldn’t include every release. Full details of all these products are available at whattheythink.com and/or printingnews.com.

In the CNC router space, AAG Tailored Cutting Solutions announced its new AXYZ METALWORKER and WARDJet M-Series. Designed for metal cutting applications, METALWORKER can handle aluminum, copper, zinc, metal composites, mild steels and stainless composite, while the M-Series waterjet is a highspeed high-acceleration large-format solution for large and multiple sheet production.

Agfa launched the Avinci CX3200 dye-sublimation roll-to-roll printer that can print either directly to textile or on transfer paper. Designed for soft signage, it can create textile prints up to 3.2 m wide. Agfa also released its “new flagship,” the 3.3m Jeti Tauro H3300 UHS LED flatbed, targeted to the high end of the sign and display market.

Canon launched the new Arizona 135 GT UV flatbed printer, capable of handling substrates up to 49.2 x 98.4 inches and up to 2.0 inches thick. Canon also expanded its 64-inch UVgel-based roll-to-roll Colorado line with the lower-cost Colorado 1630.

EFI launched its new VUTEk XT, redesigned, nextgeneration successor to the EFI VUTEk HS series of hybrid high-volume printers which can print more than 375 boards per hour. EFI has also ported the single-pass-enabled speed of its Nozomi platform to display graphics with a display graphics printer based on the EFI Nozomi C18000 Plus printer for direct-toboard corrugated packaging production. This 63-inch wide printer can print at speeds up to 1,000 sheets or boards per hour. EFI also introduced a new high-volume EFI VUTEk Q series roll-to-roll UV LED printers, comprising the 198-inch wide VUTEk Q5r and 138inch wide VUTEk Q3r. On the software side of things, EFI has also released its EFI Fiery XF/Fiery proServer version 7.3 and EFI Fiery Prep-it workflow software designed for display graphics and industrial printing.

AAG Tailored Cutting Solutions’ AXYZ METALWORKER CNC router.

Canon Colorado 1630. Continued on page 60

EFI’s Nozomi-based single-pass for display graphics printer.

EVEN VACANT STOREFRONTS SELL

Redefining “Window Shopping”

By SpeedPro

With as many as 10,000 retail store closures expected by the end of 2021, according to Coresight Research, there is untapped potential for retail storefronts to also serve as out-of-home advertising spaces.

Retailers across the world are transforming merchandise into artwork and creating eye-catching installations to drive traffic. Even though retailers may not occupy the specific storefront, there is still high foot traffic in the area and significant value in the brand real estate of a prime storefront regardless. For example, a jewelry brand with an affluent, middle-aged audience may advertise in an empty space near a Lululemon or Apple store.

According to AdAge, this new trend of renting vacant storefronts to advertisers can garner $25,000 - $30,000 from ads per month, and landlords stand to receive a hefty percentage of that revenue.

Despite changes in consumer behavior over the last year, the demise of commercial real estate and brick-and-mortar retail has been exaggerated.

“Forty-six percent of respondents said that given the choice, they prefer to shop in person rather than online,” according to Raydiant’s second annual “State of Consumer Behavior Report.”

More importantly, customers are more likely to make a purchase in a brick-and-mortar store. Best Buy found that 52% of those who shopped in-store bought a product compared to 36% of people who shopped online. Brands can capitalize on the strong desire of consumers to continue to physically visit their favorite stores.

“Eighty percent of customers now consider the experience a company provides to be as important as its products and services,” according to Salesforce’s “State of the Connected Consumer.” Raydiant’s “State of Consumer Behavior Report” revealed that 90% of consumers are more likely to return to a store if they have a positive in-store experience, and 61% said they are likely to spend more money when enjoying a positive offline experience. The good news for retailers is that it is marginally more expensive to create an engaging in-store experience through graphics, architectural finishes and aesthetic touches. The potential return on investment is significant and it encourages repeat visits. While consumers crave an excuse to

leave their house, that doesn’t mean they are leaving access to technology behind too. With the ubiquity of smart phones, having the ability to connect on-the-go is easier than ever.

For example, when the W Hotel in Philadelphia was under construction, it teased their opening through various QR codes that directed passersby to a branded Spotify playlist created by local Philly DJ Joshua Lang. The W Hotel also incorporated a QR code that led to an Instagram Reel of personal trainers who were running fitness classes on-site.

Adidas created an interactive digital window concept for their NEO teen fashion line that connected via Bluetooth to consumers’ smartphones, allowing them to experiment with various clothing pairings on a mannequin, showing that the possibilities are endless.

Near Field Communication (NFC) tags can also be embedded in storefront graphics and retail displays, which allows a consumer to hold the phone over the tag and connect to a website, social media platform, video, content download or to receive an email.

Where do you start? SpeedPro designs and implements large-format printing and graphics and offers digital signage to create a more dynamic advertising experience. A partnership with SpeedPro allows a company to translate its brand’s personality into a captivating design. Across the nation, SpeedPro offers expertise in developing images for windows, walls, floors, ceilings and anything else you can imagine.

Whether you want to advertise in unique ways or need to generate additional revenue by developing your storefront into an attention-grabbing billboard, SpeedPro will partner with you to develop impactful graphics, displays and retail experiences. Contact SpeedPro today to learn how you can leverage state-of-the-art visual branding and communication tools to accelerate your marketing and potentially generate unexpected revenue.

About SpeedPro

SpeedPro specializes in transformation through large-format printing and graphics. SpeedPro’s expertise is in translating its client’s vision into flawless large-size graphics using the industry’s most innovative printing technologies. Whether you have print-ready artwork or you need to commission an original custom design, SpeedPro works with clients and marketing agencies of all sizes and industries to produce graphics and prints that add branded experiences to retail windows, sports arena banners, event graphics, trade show displays, vehicle fleet wraps, wall murals and so much more. SpeedPro also recently launched a new proprietary technology called InfoLnkX, which is touchless smart signage technology that transmits information directly to a user’s phone simply by holding the device up to an embedded NFC chip without having to download an additional app. For more information, visit SpeedPro online at visit www.SpeedPro.com. ● Read More… Find article at PrintingNews. com/21157418