Digital Printing-Wide Format - Roll to Roll

Inside Richard Childress Racing’s in-house graphics production studio, the RCR Graphics Center, a team of expert designers and installers are working night and day to wrap its extensive line-up of cars, trucks and trailers. The shop is currently running each of its Roland printers 14 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

For Franklin Imaging in Columbus, OH, the multilayer printing capabilities of the Truepress Jet2500UV gives the 30-employee digital imaging specialist lucrative market opportunities in high-impact print applications. “We wanted to upgrade our printing capabilities to reduce our turnaround times and improve quality,” said Emily Williamson, president.

According to InfoTrends, the global market for wide-format UV-curable inkjet printers and supplies is expected to grow from $1.42 billion in 2010 to $3.04 billion in 2015 for a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.4 percent.

Created by the aptly named Carl Pappenheim, Spineless Classics take the full texts of classic novels and arranges them into “single paper designs.” Having watched “architectural drawings roll off the presses at a friend’s printing company,” Pappenheim figured that he could fit 100,000 words on each poster-size sheet. The reaction to the resultant poster led to the creation of the company, and posters are now available as far a field as New Zealand.

Quad Express Printing in Hayward, CA, is the first U.S. customer to purchase an EFI VUTEk GS3250 grand-format inkjet printer from Heidelberg USA. The printer aims to expand into the grand-format display market from its core offset printing business.

A complete vehicle wrap with the look of a QR code and featuring functioning QR codes has been designed and installed by AmeriSign & Graphics, a full-service sign, design, digital imaging and offset printing company (in Milwaukee) with more than 27 years in business.

Chris Sherman, president of AmeriSign & Graphics, addressed the question of what people will see when they scan one of the giant codes. “You’ll have to scan it to see!” he said.  “The landing graphic will change depending on different times of year, current specials, news and contests.

“We haven’t found anything like this in existence anywhere else,”

Stephen Hoey, president of wide-format graphics printer KDF Reprographics, had no idea that a request to produce the vinyl vehicle wrap for a Mini Cooper "on the cheap" would lead to several related print jobs, a role in a movie and national exposure for his Rockleigh, NJ-based company.

For companies that have digital document capability, the addition of wide-format digital is an easy process. They've moved past conventional “print think” where a successful print run has to be in the tens of thousands, and have incorporated a short-run business model with value-added services such as customization and managed distribution.

Companies new to digital imaging that are adding wide-format before digital document printing will have an easy time managing the technology. Their challenge will be refocusing the organization’s business model, and the sales staff usually is the hardest group to convert.

Since I am on Topps' e-mail list and am a sports card collector of 30-plus years, the subject line of "Topps Larger-than-Life Wall Graphics" in a recent missive was intriguing.

Springfield, MO, sign printer nPrint Graphix had just started using a new HP (Palo Alto, CA) Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer when the TV show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” came to town. When nPrint Graphix CEO John Fugitt heard about it, he got in touch with the show's producers and interior designers to discuss wide-format inkjet projects that could be used inside the house they were building for a local family.

The show was thrilled to have nPrint Graphix on board as the episode's official printing sponsor, donating 100% of its products and time. “We get into several different [charity] projects all across the country, but this was a new one, dealing with a national show and the donation of our time,” says Fugitt.