The herding instinct

There is no doubt that when it comes to ‘buzz phrases’, soft signage is one that has been around for a while. Whether it is the tear drop flags that flutter outside your local petrol station forecourt to draw in passing motorists, or the light boxes in high-end fashion retailers that use perfectly taught textile prints to make their promotions pop, it is clear this is a sector that has come of age in the UK and is ripe for the picking.

An indication of just how seriously the potential of this sector is being taken is that one of the world’s most historic ‘corporate giants’ has set its sights firmly on soft signage. Weighing in on just why signage made from printed textiles is in the ascendancy, Nigel Briggs, sales and product man-ager Euromedia, Fujifilm Graphic Systems UK, explains some of the key factors: “Soft signage is a growing area with a great deal of potential due to the strong demand for eye-catching materials that allow the production of creative, tactile, and appealing applications.
“End users are increasingly looking for easy-to-apply media that don’t require any technical knowledge or specific training, as well as helping them to save time in the installation of retail decorations, interior, or out-of-home applications.”

This latter point from Briggs is key, as increasingly the soft-signage market is diverging into two identifiable sub-markets. The first is for graphics that look professional and can be thrown up quickly and stored easily—seeing applications in corporate branding, pop-up stalls, and fast-food at events such as festivals, marathons, and charity fundraisers. The second is to act as ‘atmosphere’ pieces, normally in the form of light boxes with a stretched textile front, in areas such as high-street retail, hospitality, and transport hubs. This latter market draws on the fact that the colour on textile prints really shine through when evenly and brightly back-lit, drawing in the eye and attention of the passing consumer.

Briggs supports this view, emphasising the key attributes of Fujifilm’s product line-up in this area: “Focusing on the textile series, Lightex is a pop-ular Euromedia fabric that ensures maximum colour brilliance and bright colours.”

Get it tight

This product development from Fuji-film coincides with on-going improvements from the sign frame and tensioning sector. One of the biggest names in this fields is Spirit Displays and its Spirit-FLEX system. Founded in 2003 by brother team Hadley and Alistair Weight, the company has had to move fast and continuously evolve its product range to best exploit technological developments in fabric construction and capabilities.

“Dye-sub printing really took off a few years ago, which opened up the possibilities with soft signage and textiles. This inspired us to look at ways of stretching tensioning textiles to exploit their best attributes,” explains Hadley.
He continues: “A core part of our business strategy has been to create aluminium framing systems, which allow a very wide sector of the market to access these more niche sectors. We wanted small sign-makers with just one printer to say, ‘well I can do soft signage’. They do not need a huge business to be able to sell products in this area with our framing system, and at the same time larger companies are saying: ‘That is a great idea and it is going to save us money’.”

With momentum behind the company, Spirit Displays now caters for a wide array of soft signage framing needs. Hadley explains that customers now do not just ask for standard light boxes, and that one of the unique facets of systems such as its Spirit-TEX product is that it is easily adaptable. It also does not require any finishing to be done to the textile print.

“This opens up a unique opportunity for people to shape things,” says Hadley, adding: “You can brand an entire wall now, but it can curve or be a parallelogram. This is achievable with conventional systems, but with ours you do not have to worry about finishing it accurately. You can get the frame onto the wall and be a lot more creative with your designs.”

Briggs continues, highlighting an-other soft signage product area that is beginning to gain real traction due to its performance attributes and also allow small sign-makers into this lucrative market: “In terms of materials, our Euromedia range, including both wallpapers and textile media, can satisfy a variety of soft signage needs. More specifically, SmoothWall II Sticky is an extremely versatile wall-paper that boasts a smooth surface and a special finish for near-photographic reproductions. Easily handled, Smooth-Wall II Sticky is a robust and 100 per-cent PVC-free wall-paper that offers perfect printability and can be removed after four weeks without leaving any residue.”

Perhaps the most important point that Briggs raises in regards to the trends that are motivating such product development is that the soft signage market suffered from poor-quality technology in its early days. This is something he says Fujifilm Graphic Systems and its Euromedia brand has concentrated on overcoming, to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the industry and encourage the adoption of textile-based signs, as Briggs explains: “Soft signage is a very competitive market but many manufacturers and suppliers fail to deliver the perfect combination of high-quality substrates, suitable print technologies, and inks. We part-icularly encourage the adoption of UV ink-based printers for soft signage applications, as these inks are very durable and perfect for outdoor applications.”

A rich seam

Perhaps one of the sectors with the richest potential when it comes to soft signage, with a myriad of products and framing options, is flags. This is because the ever-advancing capabilities of direct-to-textile printing mean that quality has exponentially increased, while costs have relatively come down. Exploiting this trend to create one of the UK’s longest-running specialist trade supply sources in this area is Cornwall-based SailFlags.co.uk, which has gone from strength-to-strength over the last few years.

“Starting out as a sign-maker and dabbling in screen printing flags, we moved from screen to digital print and specialised in flag manufacture eight years ago,” explains company prop-rietor Peter Williams, who continues: “A lot of our work comes direct from local Government, schools, and busi-nesses, but we are set up as a full-trade supplier, as many sign-makers do not have the capability to do textile printing but still want to offer such a service to their customers.

“Flags, fortunately, can be used by any industry and whether it is an exhibition, trade show, or outside their premises, they look very professional.”

Williams goes on to mark out the type of opportunities that sign-makers could be tapping into, explaining that a local recumbent bicycle manufacturer has become a regular client, as it has a large export market in the USA. A recent job saw SailFlags.co.uk produce a large array of graphics, with the request being for a system that could be ‘packed into a suitcase’, as the company was going to an exhibition in California.

“We did them some fantastic flags, and massive backdrops at 12 x 2.4m, which pictured the Rocky Mountains with some rugged guys using the company’s bikes in the foreground,” continues Williams, adding: “Using soft signage really made the colours on the graphics glow when lit well and by its nature the product could just be rolled up and taken on a plane.”

This is a key advantage over rigid boards and is part of the reason why soft signage is growing so rapidly in popularity. However, the market is still tough, and very competitive, so suppliers still need to keep their prices as low as possible while remaining flexible. The focus also has to be on being able to turn around jobs really quickly and always achieve next day delivery for end-users.

The soft signage market is also changing rapidly, and consumers expect high-levels of quality today across a number of factors, such as frame durability, graphics resolution, and colour matching. 

Williams comments on this point, explaining: “When we first started out there weren’t a huge number of flag companies around and people didn’t really have anything they could com-pare the available products to. This meant most of the time they were very happy with the product.

“Today, because there is a larger number of suppliers, and the hardware, printing technology and fabrics are getting better and better, it has forced the industry to take a look at itself. Now, in order to survive, you have to compete much more tightly with your neighbouring companies. This means we all look at our products closely each year and see how we can improve them, which is a better deal for the customer.”

Hadley from Spirit Displays weighs in on these issues, emphasising that some companies may be missing a trick by not offering an extensive soft signage service: “There is a stigma as a lot of soft signage systems out there are still silicone based in terms of finishing. Also dye-sub printing is seen as something of a dark art. Many companies also can’t afford a machine that is purely dedicated to textile printing. So that has historically eliminated a lot of companies who would rather buy a hybrid flatbed and roll-to-roll machine and diversify that way.

“What they don’t realise is that today they can print textiles on that machine, which can be used for a set of soft sign-age applications. This is because fabrics have been developed that are compatible with latex and UV printing. This opens up the soft signage market to people who haven’t even considered it.”

Seasoned campaigners

Another important factor is that this intense competition between sign-makers on such products has lowered prices. That said, the market is still growing and, as such, increasing demand volumes compensate amply for smaller margins. SailFlags.co.uk’s Williams points out that the advice they offer any trade supply customer of theirs is to focus on how to do things cheaper, better, and faster, without compromising good customer service—a philosophy that recently earnt SailFlags.co.uk its ISO9001:2008 accreditation, which measures management and customer service performance.

A further change that is sweeping the sector, and one new entrants need to think about, is that products such as flags are now in their third or fourth generation for many repeat buyers. This means that questions around the durability of the fabric elements, whether they will stand strong winds, and the correct base for the application are all now standard as part of a job inquiry.

“Sign-makers can’t sit back anymore and stock a system, asking, ‘would you like it?’ For our trade customers we offer a huge variety of fabrics, bases, and frames, but we can produce anything they want to the specific requirements of the customer, and it arrives direct in plane packaging,” concludes Williams, before adding: “Printing a nice logo and graphics onto standard foamex can actually cheapen a brand. But if you print it onto a nice fabric it instantly raises it and that is the key quality that is making soft signage so popular and driving sales. Soft signage is also very easy to use, cheaper to transport, increasingly cheaper to make, and has better environmental credentials than many alternatives.”

Staking your claim

Perhaps one of the best weather vanes when it comes to analysing a market sector such as soft signage is to look to how some of its biggest players are performing. A clear indication of the market’s buoyancy therefore is the level of investment that Hampshire Flag has just committed to upping its production capabilities in this arena. 

Founded in 1982 and taking on board its current managing director, Graham Wilkinson, in 2002 to modernise the company, it has just finished a two-year investment project that has totalled more than £500,000. This included a new industrial disperse dye printer, a Zund cutter, a 3m wide-format HP Latex 850 printer, a large new production mezzanine, eight new staff, and new wash-plant machinery, to name just a few major elements.

“The last couple of years especially have been very good for us and the market has been buoyant when it comes to demand for products in the soft signage arena. Part of this was to do with diary events such as the Jubilee, although the Olympics had almost no impact because the one major contract went abroad. The other driving factor though is that we are seeing textile-based products go into new areas where they would not have been previously,” says Wilkinson.

He continues: “This is because there is a far greater variety of organisations seeing the benefits of soft signage and using it for branding, atmosphere, or decoration. There has also been a definite upturn in the use of textiles in the exhibition sector and also perm-anent soft signage applications.”

As one of the UK’s biggest trade suppliers in this area, Wilkinson explains that it is seeing good sales to its sign-maker customers, not only flags, box canvases, exhibition and stage backdrops, but also as an alternative to the traditional PVC roll-up banner and pop-up stand. Wilkinson explains that these two products, when combined with textile prints, become far more attractive and flexible. This is because the polyester does not crease and just springs taught, and can also be washed rather than abandoned when it becomes dirty.

Wilkinson continues: “In the words of Apple, people need to think a little bit different. A lot of the projects we are working on at the moment are a combination of traditional branding and soft signage, so that is quite exciting and I think sign-makers need to consider more carefully what they offer. 

“We have been producing feather flags for nine years, but it was not until three years ago that you really started to see this type of solution being fairly widely used. The bottom line is that businesses need to input that extra level of creativity when doing a proposal for a client and really draw on the variety of top-quality options that are now available in this sector.”

This argument rings true, as I failed to notice a new delicatessen on my local high street for more than a month until it invested in two feather flags.

“People are just too used to A-Frames and swinging signs and just walk past them, but when there is a flag sitting there you tend to look at it because of the scale. With textile you also really can get some nice punchy colours,” enthuses Wilkinson, before concluding: “The products in this area are so good now you are missing a trick if you don’t investigate them fully. Things like feather and tear drop flags are sexy, they lift branding and bring some kudos to the company, even if it isn’t a national brand.”

Looking to the arena of light boxes and framed textile prints, a key factor that is helping to accelerate their success in the market comes down to one main point—flexibility.

“In addition to their green credentials, textiles are light-weight, and this means the framing systems and structures around them are very easy to adapt around a creative brief,” concludes Spirit Display’s Weight, adding: “This means you can easily hang graphics installations from the ceiling to make them seem as if they are floating in space, as opposed to heavy flexface boxes. Add to that the fact that the colours, on the newer fabrics especially, are so punchy when printed with dye-sub then it really makes a strong case for their extended use. Looking to the future, developments in technology sectors such as LEDs will only serve to make soft signage products more attractive and easy to use.”

It seems certain that soft signage is no longer ‘the next big thing’ but is currently one of the hottest sectors in the UK sign industry. If you are considering where to hang your hat when it comes to your next investment or expansion decision, look no further.

lllll