Gerber Scientific Products, Inc. has announced their newest offering in the wide-format UV inkjet printer marketplace – the Gerber Solara ion. The Gerber Solara ion is the culmination of Gerber’s growing expertise in field of inkjet printers. Capitalizing on their experience and success with the Gerber Solara series of inkjet printers, GSP has developed a technologically advanced printer format that meets the varied needs of wide-format, outdoor durable digital printing applications. The result is the merger of a true flatbed and true roll-to-roll printer – the Gerber Solara ion. Read the rest of this entry »

What vinyl film should you use? Oracal, MACtac, 3M, Avery? With all of the media options offered from each company it could be a challenge to figure out what is best for you, says Melissa Tetreault over at Digital Output magazine.

“Most installers agree—the best method is hands on. Once they find a product that works for their shop they typically stay with it. Perhaps the easiest way to figure this out is to attend a wrap seminar, held by all of the above companies,” she concludes after assessing each of the brands.

Click here to read her assessment, and let me know what brand you like the most and why.

Océ introduced the Océ CS9060 eco-solvent inkjet printer for creating indoor and outdoor display graphics prints. The company is targeting people who are entering the digital printing market or companies that are already active in this market and want to expand their production capacity. Read the rest of this entry »

AdPads are  hitting the streets. What are they? High resolution, bitumen based, full color graphic images that stick to the concrete or asphalt outdoors. They can be as small as your hand or as big as a parking lot. It’s a ad strategy that’s getting hotter — and you can get in on it.

AdPads has its own thing going on, but that doesn’t stop you from offering clients vinyl floor graphics. Think out of the box. There’s so much more you can do to generate income beyond vehicle wraps and vinyl banners. Check this out for yourself. It’s a lucrative opportunity that’s right up your alley.

“I wonder what the first person thought when they heard someone was selling advertising on a bus bench? We are currently at that stage,” said Angie Sampson, president, Limetree Media. “AdPads take communication to a whole new level. They help companies get noticed and stand out from the competition by getting away from traditional advertising.”

Pantone has unveiled the PANTONE Goe System, a new color inspiration and specification system for the graphic arts industry since the introduction of the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM 45 years ago. With 2,058 new PANTONE Colors, the PANTONE Goe System is designed to inspire creativity and fulfill the requirements of a fast-changing, technologically advancing industry. The System includes modern tools and interactive software to improve versatility in an increasingly global, multimedia environment.

“The original PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM was designed to meet the needs of an industry that was functioning without a precise and reliable way to communicate color,” explained Richard Herbert, president of Pantone, Inc. “The PANTONE Goe System works in concert with the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM to empower everyone in the creative and production process with a simpler, more complete, user-friendly workflow from the moment of inspiration to the realization of a finished project. Just as the original System enabled the industry to step into its future, PANTONE Goe will impel designers and printers to stay competitive and versatile in today’s challenging and evolving marketplace.”

The 2,058 new colors in the PANTONE Goe System are arranged in an intuitive, chromatic order for easy, precise, cross-media color selection and specification. The PANTONE Goe System includes the PANTONE GoeGuide and PANTONE GoeSticks, a two-volume set of adhesive-backed chips, along with intelligent software for creating color palettes that can be imported into applications, shared among coworkers and clients, and archived for future reference.

What’s Ceelite-certified film, you ask? Vinyl film products certified by CeeLite, LLC for use with their LEC (light-emitting capacitor) technology. CeeLite LEC panels turn any surface into a light source and offer many benefits: the LEC panels are paper-thin, provide flawless white surface illumination, consume little power and generate no heat. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most significant product developments hit the wide-format marketplace has been the introduction of UV flatbed inkjet systems. So says Bill Schiffner over at Wide-Format Imaging magazine. And I agree with him.

According to Patti Williams, consulting partner at I.T. Strategies, “The wide-format graphics market is in part a sub sector of the larger display graphics market which includes applications such as POP signage, trade show graphics, billboards, and other types of large graphics and printing technologies such as screen, offset and digital. I.T. Strategies estimates that the Display Graphics market has a worldwide retail value of output around $100 billion. Screen printing makes up about half the market and digital around 30 percent.

Click here to read the rest of his article in Wide-Format Imaging magazine. There’s some neat photos over there you don’t want to miss.