A bright future
Production hardware tends to follow a rather predictable development path. Printers, for example, get faster, wider and less expensive to acquire and operate. The product roadmaps for materials though are more difficult to anticipate and, at a casual glance at least, tend to look fairly static.
Have materials really developed that much over the years? Metamark’s chief executive officer, Paul French, explains his company’s position regarding development: “Manufacturers, including Metamark, are not likely to invent materials that apply themselves any time soon. I see our job as engineering the next best thing—materials that make the whole process easier.”
He continues: “Material manufactures have to walk a bit of a tightrope in coming up with products that are easy to handle but that endure the toughest conditions. These needs place very disparate technical demands upon us. The art is in manipulating what’s available, inventing what isn’t and building great product from those results.”
Material manufactures have to walk a bit of a tightrope in coming up with products that are easy to handle but that endure the toughest conditions”
For wide-format media, this has often meant using tried and tested materials and creating a coating that enables different types of ink to adhere to them. The availability of canvasses, wallpapers, textiles, vinyls and the like are evidence of this. The substrate itself is the same as used by other industries, but the need to add digital graphics to them is where the clever development is done.
“In the case of materials you print, we’ve got a pretty big equity in quality with our MD-Class materials—they just print beautifully,” claims Metamark’s French.
He adds: “Behind them though, we have our APEX adhesive system, it’s a patented single component cross-linking development that gives the user great touch-down tack, really manageable, and a big ultimate bond. The user can still remove the product from the vehicle years later and it doesn’t leave a trace. We got to where this development takes us as a result of deliberate and planned design, but it actually turned out better than expected so we’re ahead of ourselves at this point.”
Stunning decorative murals can be developed using products like Metamark’s
MDTX wallpaper media
Materials to the sign producer are both a staple and an enabler. Right there on the shelves next to the go-to roll of a favourite white or clear, is something that may have a little dust on the box but that gets used occasionally. This is usually something designed for a novel application. The sign industry, like many others, has developed behind the growth of easily accessible means of self promotion and a new mindset is evident in many of its practitioners. No longer content just to produce what is asked for, many are on the front foot and taking the new applications that novel materials enable to the market. They are also making a case for growth through finding new uses for established material technologies.
French continues: “We see our materials pressed into all sorts of off-beat applications these days. Things that were never in the plan when the material was developed. A good example would be the rise of what we at Metamark call the ‘photo-mural’, that’s a development that industry practitioners invented. Some time ago, we began getting application advice calls, and then photographs of superb looking finished jobs began arriving. These showed our customers covering whole walls in mood-making imagery, advertising, or just colours and textures.
We see our materials pressed into all sorts of off-beat applications these days. Things that were never in the plan when the material was developed”
“We spotted an opportunity and developed a material expressly for the job the industry had invented and we recently launched our MD-TX product. This industry has pretty deep reserves of imagination. We didn’t think the uptake was going to be as fast. This is great though. It’s a perfect example of a new material creating a whole new market opportunity using the skills you already practice and the hardware you already own.”
Materials have evolved significantly from the days where they just happened to work in signing applications and today represent very exotic alliances of available technologies crafted for express purposes. Staying current is important.
Optimised for printers
Sihl’s Persomural system is ideal for producing large landscape imagery according
to the company
Another dedicated media manufacturer is Sihl Direct, which launched in the UK last year to sell the Sihl Group’s range of wide-format materials.
“For us, it’s all about making sure products are optimised for the printers our customers are using. Research and development is crucial and we put all our media through extensive testing with all the most popular printers and ink technologies,” says Ian Turnbull, operations director for Sihl Direct UK.
The most recent product launches from Sihl back up this statement. The new range of backlit films, called Dura Cure and Light Cure, are specifically designed for use with UV-curable based inkjet printers.
“The whole Dura Cure range offers perfect flatness, making them ideal for UV printers,” advises Turnbull, who adds: “The media is an ideal combination of paper and film, with Sihl using a high proportion of paper to keep the product as environmentally friendly as possible.
It’s a perfect example of a new material creating a whole new market opportunity using the skills you already practice and the hardware you already own”
“They use only as much film as is necessary to achieve high levels of stiffness and tear resistance. The multifunctional surface also makes Dura Cure ideal for various printing techniques and the rough paper structure gives the products a decorative character and distinguishes them from other ordinary Backlit media.
The Light Cure backlit film is a double-sided matt-coated polyester film and has been developed specifically for use in applications such as light boxes. The special coating means this film allows printing on both sides, which in turn produces the best results for both refractive and reflective light applications.
Sihl Direct has also reportedly seen a massive rise in wall covering applications and so has launched a range of materials to meet this demand.
A carbon wrapped car interior. Metamark claims this is a big potential market for our
industry and only a few are practising it
Agreeing with Metamark’s French when it comes to the potential of this sector, Turnbull states: “Wall coverings are without doubt the next big thing in the wide-format media market. We have had a product for some time and it is now proving to be very popular, particularly in public places, boardrooms and retail environments.”
Turnbull is referring to Sihl’s Persomural graphics system, and as he explains, demand for products in this sector is opening up a brand new horizon of possibility for material development: “Persomural is a high quality non-woven wallpaper coated with a satin solvent ink compatible inkjet layer, which offers a good colour gamut and high scratch-resistance. Due to its properties this wallpaper can be applied to the wall without additional protection with standard glue or wallpaper paste.
Brand importance
Colourgen claims the Kodak brand represents quality and value as much as ever
Kodak is another media supplier that has started to expand its reach when it comes to developing graphic display materials and systems. One of its latest products to come to the UK is Photo Tex, an easy to position fabric for water-based printers.
Sign industry supplier Colourgen is a key distributor for Kodak’s graphic systems and has seen its Photo Tex range gain particular traction, singling it out as a key area of technological development for the future.
The product works perfectly, leaving no residue and maintaining image quality and stability”
“So far I have repositioned some Photo Tex graphics eight times on a range of surfaces, including glass, wood and even wallpaper. The product works really well, leaves no residue, and maintaines image quality and stability. It is also very easy to use and, as long as the surface is clean and flat, Photo Tex will adhere and remove as easily as the claims suggest,” enthuses Melanie Enser, product marketing manager at Colourgen.
According to Enser, Photo Tex is ideally suited to a broad range of indoor applications, such as life-size photographic cut-outs for walls, entire wall murals, posters, point-of-sale, banner stands, marketing displays, and promotional graphics. It can also be used in a variety of indoor locations, including walls, windows, doors, sign-boards, pillars, exhibition stands, and can be laminated for high traffic areas if required. This flexibility keys into a wider trend in material evolution across the sign industry, seeing materials move from being designed for one specific purpose, to being developed to address a range of application needs.
Getting up to speed
SignLink reports regularly on material developments as they are announced by their manufacturers. However, a surprising amount of the real potential that new products embody is latent until a sign-maker acts and makes a market for the range of output the material enables.
If you are using an old-school material, you are almost certainly at a disadvantage and may want to consider asking for some sample of what is available now to experience the difference”
You have only to look at carbon-like wrapping films to see that fashion explosions can and do happen. However, behind rapidly rising stars, beats the steady demand of the staple products used in day-to-day production.
Make no mistake, staple products may look like they are moving along at a pedestrian pace, but in fact it is an area that is developing all the time. Leading developers and brands are making better materials than were available only two years ago. If you are using an old-school material, you are almost certainly at a disadvantage and may want to consider asking for some sample of what is available now to experience the difference.
