Beauty in Small Things

Over the last few years, due to the demand for increasingly large signage items such as building wraps, production printers seem to have ‘grown like Topsy’, with wide-format and, more recently, super-wide machines coming to the fore. However, alongside this, and now enjoying a quiet revolution of their own, have been desktop printers.

Getting kitted out

For sign-makers looking to provide smaller printed items and short production runs, the new breed of desktop inkjet printers now offers the quality and capabilities of their larger cousins.

Stuart Cole, national sales manager industrial products (UV) at Hybrid Services, exclusive distributor for Mimaki in the UK and Ireland, says that Mimaki’s JF Series, and in particular the LED-UV range, has revolutionised production in terms of both manufacturing and printing.

The A3-size UJF-3042FX and UJF-3042HG and A2-size UJF-6042 flatbed printers are designed to print to rigid substrate and are, therefore, a popular choice for direct to substrate signage and promotional products. With the inclusion of white ink and clear varnish, they enable a wide range of creative solutions, adding new dimensions for personal and industrial printing applications. An optional ‘kebab’ add-on enables direct printing to the circumference of cylindrical items, allowing a 360 degree wrap on glass, metal, acrylic and other surfaces.



The Mimaki UJF-3042HG, which has a 50mm head gap, and the UJF-3042HG, with a 50mm head gap, cold cure LED-UV printers come with a choice of hard or flexible inks that can incorporate white, primer, and varnish depending on the need and application. The UJF-3042HG also incorporates additional heads. The UJF-6042 A2 printer, featuring 150mm head gap and 1800dpi variable dot photo quality output, has the ability to print to almost any substrate. It incorporates a ball screw type head conveyance mechanism—traditionally found only in very high-end flatbed printers—which greatly enhances the accuracy of the ink drop placement onto the substrate, and the A2 bed size allows two facing pages of an A3 photo book to be printed simultaneously. For smaller items, an efficient layout can be created with the use of jigs, ensuring accurate print placement and ease of workflow.


“These machines are very much the ones that define the sector because of their broad applications and the capability to respond to growing markets, including pay-to-print,” asserts Cole, adding: “It’s all ‘trickle-down’ technology from high end industrial printers. However, with easy to use but powerful RIP software, low running costs, and no more than a domestic plug required to install them, they are also suitable for use in a normal office environment. With no limit to minimum run lengths and the ability to handle variable data, short and highly profitable production becomes a reality.

“We also have a very strong market in the industrial sector where the printers fit within a manufacturing process, providing a printed element to aspects of the end product.”

Meanwhile, Phil George of Sign-master Systems, a leading UK supplier for sign-making equipment and consumables, highlights two Roland machines: “Wide-format meets desktop printing with solutions such as Roland’s Versastudio BN-20 and VersaUV LEF range,

“The BN-20 is a 20" solvent print solution is ideal for people looking to start printing from home, or as an add-on to existing sign-making equipment. With its integrated print and cut capabilities, the BN-20 is the perfect machine for producing labels and decals, heat transfers for garments, posters, even mobile and laptop skins.”



The BN-20 also offers added value with white and metallic ink options, making it particularly suited for printing on transparent or coloured media and creating striking effects.

The LEF range brings wide-format UV print technology into a compact desktop chassis.



George adds: “Due to its small footprint, the LEF 12" or 20" is an ideal print solution for the home as well as existing established companies. Using Roland’s market leading UV ink formulation, the machines are capable of printing onto a vast range of materials, wood, acrylic, plastics, metals, and slate. The LEF comes standard with opaque white ink and also a gloss cartridge, great for POS and em-bossing, there are almost limitless printing opportunities.”



Making strides

So, where is all this leading the sign-maker looking for new directions and added profitability?

With a print resolution of up to 1800dpi, extremely low power usage, due to the cold curing UV-LED technology, and a very versatile capability, the Mimaki UJF range fits well into print operations to either add new revenue streams or replace traditional costlier and more time consuming processes.

Cole of Hybrid Services explains: “A product that sports such substantial features, quality of print, and is capable of such limitless applications has a natural home in the promotional product printing industry.”

According to Cole, a particular area that has seen a recent increase in interest is the photo-block market, with printing directly onto the reverse of acrylic: “Acrylic block photos are the ‘next big thing’. And they offer good profit-making options.”

One company that has taken advantage of Mimaki’s UJF range to enhance its offering is Excel Promotions, based in Waterford City, Ireland. Founded by Paul Kelly in 1999, Excel offers an extensive collection of products and services for the promotional and advertising industries and its investment in a direct to substrate Mimaki UJF-3042HG flatbed printer has delivered the capability to offer short runs of high quality, full colour prints onto the majority of its products.



Excel Promotions’ products include corporate gifts, embroidered work and leisurewear, trophies and awards, sports products, pens, key rings, and collectibles, the vast majority of which can be imprinted using the Mimaki to add personalisation, branding, and customised content.

Founder Kelly comments: “Throughout our time in business we have established strong working relationships with our customers and have constantly invested in the latest technology. As we print onto such a varied range of materials for our clients, we wanted to be able to expand our range and also to be able to turn work around for our clients quickly. After looking at the Mimaki we knew this machine would do just that for us.”

Dave Rainsford, general manager of Ireland for Hybrid Services adds: “We worked closely with Paul and authorised Mimaki re-seller Reprocentre to ensure he got the correct machine to help drive his business forward and add imprinted value to its product range. I’m delighted to see the work he is producing on it today”

One step further

Aldershot-based Digital Blanks has taken things one step further by providing a turnkey solution for the promotional products industry. Not content with being a ‘me too’ provider of gifts and printed items, the company offers an innovative service comprising blank promotional products and all the tools you need to produce your own short runs.

With a well-established foundation in trade supply and printing for the promotions industry, Digital Blanks marketing manager, Rob Hayes out-lines the company’s capabilities: “We have over ten years’ printing experience, using a variety of techniques. We’re screen printing specialists, but we’ve been doing digital transfer printing on flat promotional products for several years now and we find the Mimaki UJF-3042 offers the same photographic print quality, if not better.

“We were the first company to print in full colour onto promotional products and with the range of goods on our website, we wanted to appeal to purchasers of Mimaki equipment like the UJF-3042 by providing blank promotional items for them to imprint.”

It was the Mimaki’s ability to print onto practically any product with a vibrant, photo quality image, taking advantage of facets of digital printing such as variable data, unlimited colours and short runs that led Digital Blanks to create a solution that provides every imaginable add-on to the machine in a comprehensive catalogue of promotional wares, specifically designed for the printer.

O Factoid: The first time anyone made a business from promotional merchandise was in 1886 when Ohio newspaper man Jasper Meek approached a local shoe store owner with the idea that, instead of letting his printing machinery go idle between editions of the newspaper, he could use it to print a message advertising the shoe store onto bags which would be given away with every shoe purchase. That way, he reasoned, when kids used the bags to carry their school books, they would also advertise the store.  O

Hayes adds: “Everything we do is tried and tested before it comes to the catalogue, so we’re developing products that ensure consistency of quality. It’s time-intensive doing the R and D around product selection, but it’s important for us to be able to guarantee the result for our customers.”

Digital Blanks’ managing director, James Cleere takes up the story: “We design products in-house, have our own moulds made and then produced overseas. We’re also constantly looking at ways we can re-design products so that we can better print to them.


For example, our Helios highlighter is a flower-shaped multicoloured high-lighter pen with a printable central circle. So we’ve designed it so that you just have to print the circular insert, allowing our customers to get more products on the bed, and achieve better control of registering artwork.”

Picking up the story, Hayes adds: “The Mimaki breaks down all the barriers for price and appeals to so many people. It enables cost-effective production of one-offs and small runs for which there’s a high demand in the promotions industry—and currently there’s just no other way of doing it. There’s an even bigger opportunity with the premium gifts—but it works very well for either option.”

Digital Blanks’ sphere of activities is not just limited to the UK. Having started off servicing Mimaki distrbutors who showed the UJF-3042 printer at foreign exhibitions, they now have customers in the USA and Canada who are coming to them for jigs and blank merchandising.

Hayes adds: “We want to give them a turnkey solution, an all in one package, a one stop shop for everything they need for their Mimaki.”

While the promotional goods sector is almost the natural home for desktop printing systems, it is clear that, with a bit of lateral thinking, they offer many other opportunities for ‘turning an honest penny’. And, with their small size and a reasonably low entry cost, these systems can be easily installed where space is limited, making it a viable option to ‘test the waters’ of diversification.

Epson delivers direct-to-garment dream Machine for Sign-makers

For print shops or sign-makers to create a new t-shirt printing revenue stream without the set up costs and space required for traditional production screen printing, direct-to-garment (DTG) digital printing is a real possibility. DTG is also a possible option for traditional screen printers wanting to deliver full-colour, short-run, quick-turnaround, and personalised-garments, with no set ups or colour separations.

According to the many t-shirt forums and bloggers on the internet, Epson was seen to ‘wait it out’ in this market, watching other manufacturers iron out tech issues and glitches in this technology. If this is true, then by waiting and tackling these issues head-on, Epson seems to have delivered a well-thought-out DTG printer in the Epson SC-F2000—it can even fit on a desktop.



Historical problems on DTG printers have included head strikes because of lint, dust, and uneven platens, as well as issues with the white ink pigment (the TIO2 pigment) settling in the ink lines and clogging up printheads.

Larry Kaufman, product manager Professional Imaging, Epson America, recently said that Epson dedicated a team of mechanical, chemical, and software engineers for more than three years to create this all-new imaging technology designed for printing directly onto garments. Many hybrid solutions exist in the market, but what Epson has here is a first among its kind; a garment printer where the printhead, ink, and chassis have been designed and manufactured by one brand.


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