The wide format Issue

It’s been said that wide-format is a mature market, but that’s only in the sense that there are not a lot of new entrants into the market.

As you’ll see in the features in this issue, demand for signage and display graphics from customers shows no sign of slowing down. And consumables manufacturers have been upping their game, developing materials that can adhere to virtually any surface or object with increased durability. At the same time, display graphics producers are now looking to expand beyond wide-format into other areas, like labels, packaging and even textiles, but they’d like to be able to use the same equipment, and even the same consumables to do so.

If you check out this issue’s installment of “Tales from the Database,” you’ll see that there has been increased interest in UV flatbed devices over the past couple of years, not necessarily at the expense of other ink technologies like solvent, but to allow print providers to produce applications that complement those that other types of devices can produce. And as manufacturers have broadened their equipment portfolios, there are now flatbed units to be found at virtually any price point or productivity level. Still, these devices do have a fairly big footprint, so they’re not for everyone.

In this issue, we also profile the winners of this year’s FASTSIGNS Project of the Year Awards, and one of the factors that set the winners apart was the ability to produce many many different kinds of materials for the same project—ranging from banners to window graphics, to traditional signage, to indoor wall and floor graphics, to vehicle wraps. Landing these kinds of major projects requires the ability to be versatile, which can pay off tremendously. After all, projects that win these kinds of awards are usually pretty lucrative, as well.

We are also seeing a buildout in wide-format finishing equipment, and Mark Vruno looks at the latest developments in, and features of, cutting tables.

Thanks to our Issue Sponsor, we feature Executive Q&A’s with Jerry Matsufuji, Canon U.S.A., Inc. vice president and general manager; and Rich Reamer, senior marketing director of Canon USA’s Business Information Communications Group.

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