Wide-Format Applications That Drive Profit and Success

Wide-format inkjet opens many new opportunities for commercial printers to both add value for their existing clients and grow their business with new clients. From simple wide-format posters to elaborate specialty applications, if you can imagine it, you can produce it.

Many commercial printers are already embracing applications like POP/signs, window graphics, and decals. Why not bring that wide-format revenue in-house? Plus, you can offer creative solutions your clients might not even know are possible.

What follows is a showcase of some of the fastest growing and creative applications being produced with Canon Solutions Americas' flatbed printers, cutters, and software.

The stained glass effect was printed on polycarbonate with an Océ Arizona printer and Océ ProCut digital finishing system.

Imitation Stained Glass
Does your client have an ugly view out a side window and no budget to replace it? Or maybe want more privacy with their meeting room windows? Surprise them with this creative solution — don’t replace the windows. Cover them with gorgeous imitation stained glass instead. Clients will love that imitation stained glass is a fraction of the cost of new windows and leaves that portion of the budget for another project.

These décor-enhancers were printed on an Océ Arizona printer to add style, while still allowing in filtered light. Even the raised leading around the different glass pieces was simulated. These effects are made possible thanks to the Océ Arizona printer’s ability to produce dimensional effects by overprinting multiple times. The dimensional printing process has even been used to produce braille signage.

Click here to watch a video on how this stained glass application was created.

Creative Signage
Who says signage has to be dull? Wide-format lets you print on everything from wood and glass to plastic and vinyl.

Today’s wide-format machines can print on metal, too. Think of the opportunities opened by the ability to print customized and personalized parking signage alone.

• Ask if they have issues with traffic flow. Maybe they could use a few branded "No Exit" signs.
• Are they promoting fundraising run? When they come in to order direct mailers, offer to print them "Runner Parking" signs, too.
• Bring a smile! If they have an active employee of the month program, suggest creating personalized "employee of the month" parking signs.

This award was printed on aluminum on a wood base using an Océ Arizona printer. It was cut using an Océ ProCut digital finishing system.

To download the full white paper, Applications That Drive Profit and Success, click here.

Plaques and Awards
If you’re going to produce a plaque, make it stand out. Encourage your clients to set their designers’ creativity free. The ability of wide-format printers from Canon Solutions America to print on metal, wood, and plastic means that, no matter how "out there" the ideas, you can handle them. Plus, you can make some excellent margins producing something that can’t be purchased elsewhere.

To learn more about how plaques and awards are produced click here. 

Window clings offer a cost-effective way to get a message out there.

Window Clings
Have a client planning a milestone anniversary? Retail client looking for new ways to promote a big sale or hours of business? Window clings are an easy, cost-effective way to get that message out. Print them big or small. Stick small clings on the windows of doors, offices, or cafeterias. Plaster huge clings in retail locations. Shout a message in bright, eye-catching, "can’t miss it" graphics and color.

This pop-up stand was printed using an Océ Arizona UV printer on a honeycomb board, with vinyl finishing strip added to the stand base.

Pop-up Stands
Print pop-up stands for a range of uses. Provide clients with a way of listing events at their next seminar or open house. Alert employees or shoppers to critical information. Because pop-up displays are mobile, they can be moved as needed to optimize visibility or facilitate traffic flow.

This all-purpose, transportable pop-up "stand in a box" can be taken anywhere it needs to go.

Click here to find out how this pop-up stand was created. 

Day/Night Backlit Displays
Traditionally, graphics designed for displays have been printed either for daytime or nighttime (backlit) viewing, but not both. Recent advances allow the printing of images that look gorgeous whether the light is coming in from the front or behind.

This display is a creative example that was output on an Océ Arizona printer.

Help your clients maximize the viewing opportunities in areas with shifting light conditions, including for POP displays, retail signage, sports arenas, public venues, and commuter locations. You can even create dual messaging within the same backlit — one for day, the other for night.

Displays can be printed on any suitable transparent substrate like polycarbonate or PETG.

To see how the day/night backlit in the example above was created click here.

This example was printed on black foam board on an Océ Arizona printer. It was finished on an Océ ProCut digital finishing system.

Pre-cut Substrates
Sometimes a client just wants something fun to display on a table or at an event. Encourage them to try printing contour cut standups, structural items, or even directly onto off-the-shelf manufactured items to create one-of-a-kind promotional items.

Spur imagination and create a fun element of creativity and surprise. We’ve even heard of pharmacies and medical centers using cutouts of their pharmacists and on-staff doctors for lobbies and waiting areas to create a more personal connection with their customers and patients.

One overlooked advantage of the Océ Arizona is the stationary table design. Since the item being printed isn’t moving, you can easily print onto irregular shapes. This allows you the flexibility to pre-cut substrates to whatever the final shape, then print them later. With the traditional “print first and cut later” approach, ruining a piece at the finishing stage requires reprinting. This reverse “cut and print” approach means you can reduce internal costs and speed turnaround times by not having to reprint a piece damaged in finishing.

Click here to watch a video on how the cutouts in the example above were produced.

Floor Graphics
It’s the day of the open house and the school or college will be flooded with prospective students and their families. Suggest adding creative, branded floor graphics to direct people where to go. Point visitors to the cafeteria, the fine arts wing, and the auditorium. Or help your retail clients focus attention on the latest promotion or sale with an eyecatching "shout out" from the floor.

Floor graphics also allow you to offer creative cost-saving opportunities to companies on a budget. Instead of replacing old, outdated floors with new substrate, for example, suggest simply covering them with updated patterns and designs printed at a fraction of the cost of replacing the actual flooring.

Trade Show and Freestanding Displays
From retail displays to waiting room racks, print and assemble custom freestanding displays. Make them eye-catching. Personalize them to the location or event. Or just have fun!

Displays aren’t limited to corrugated board. Because our Océ Arizona series can print on everything from rigid board to roll media, you can outfit a client’s entire booth with everything from product displays to privacy screens. With the flexibility offered by wide-format production, you can tailor their presence to each show and its individual attendee base.

You can produce branded toys and games.

Toys and Games
Wouldn’t it be great if a nonprofit fundraiser went beyond hoagies and boxed chocolates? What if you could produce branded jigsaw puzzles, toys, and games with a school or charity’s mascot emblazoned on them? Or better yet, the face of each child or donor? Now you can. Create branded and personalized gifts, fundraisers, and incentives.

Packaging
Packaging is increasingly segmented by geography, niche, and even language. Printing in-house allows you to produce smaller runs more cost-effectively, and even experiment with personalized versions.

• Print prototype packages to enable your clients to refine their designs more cost-effectively.
• Encourage your clients to do something fun for their employees on special occasions by printing branded company packaging with their faces on it.
• Pitch short-run, niche packaging to local retailers or specialty product manufacturers.

Big Creativity, Big Profits
In this day and age of social media, everyone wants to reflect their personality and put their own personal stamp on their content. Let the flexibility and cost efficiencies of flatbed printing and finishing spur your clients’ creativity and experimentation and bring added revenue for you.

• Customize signs and banners.
• Produce personalized graphics.
• Enable creative solutions.
• Offer fast-turn services with extremely high quality.
• Produce customized applications that command a higher value than commoditized printing.

When you can use wide-format technology to solve problems that your clients didn’t know you could solve, when sales at their company are up and the only thing that changed is the POP signage, and when you can save the day by cranking out displays at the last minute, you are not just meeting a need. You are making your clients more successful — and more in love with you.