Designers Day pushes creative boundaries
Roland DG and Make it in Design have combined in an event to demonstrate to designers the variety of effects and applications that can be achieved with their range of printers.
Tuesday, 29 Nov 2016 13:26 GMT
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Roland DG and Make it in Design invited around 20 designers for a series of demonstrations by Roland’s Joe Wigzell
Billed as a Designers Day around 20 designers were invited to Roland DG’s Creative Centre in Clevedon near Bristol for a series of demonstrations and informative talks by academy and creative centre manager, Joe Wigzell. He was aided and abetted by training firm Make it in Design’s sales and marketing manager, Lisa Moncrief, who helped to organise the day which began with a demonstration of the True Vis VG wide-format printer and cutter.
Wigzell explains: “There are two models: the 64 and 54” printer. They can just print or just cut a huge variety of materials or do both. The beauty is it does it all in one go. So, once you’ve set up the machine it does everything for you.”
He continues: “It all starts with design, which is what you guys do. You use your inspiration and ideas, and the machine will produce the work you want. You can use all sorts of file types, tifs, jpgs, pdfs and eps.
“You can have RGB photos within the design, or vector based spot colours, all different types of colour levels within the same file, along with cutting guides and special information such as white inks, and even glossing for embossing. So, there’s a great deal of flexibility with the printers.”
Roland DG and Make it in Design invited around 20 designers for a series of
demonstrations by Roland’s Joe Wigzell
The designers asked questions throughout the session on the materials that could be used, the colour ranges, and the potential uses of the kit. A number of Roland DG’s machines were demonstrated including the Soljet EJ640 wide-format high volume printer, the desktop Versa Studio BN-20 print and cutter, and the wide-format 64 inch Soljet PR04 printer that can turn over at a speed of 102sq m/h.
Metal engraving and three-dimensional printing was also demonstrated, showing how anything from a machine part to jewellery accessories could be produced. Merchandising in the form of gifts, souvenirs, and saleable products were displayed along with a vast wealth of examples of textile printing.
One of the highlights of the event was a demonstration of vehicle wrapping by James Deacon of Bigger Stickers from Buckinghamshire. The designers had a chance to wrap parts of a Smart car under the direction of Deacon, who regularly works with Roland DG with their academy programme.
If I wrap a van in an unusual and eye-catching design and take photos and share them on Facebook, and get the client and others to do the same and it goes viral, then potentially 10 million people could see it. That’s marketing”
Wigzell continues: “You can customise your car without respraying. It can be a car but also anything non-porous such as trains, planes and even bins. Currently Sky are wrapping 3,000 vehicles as a marketing tool. I still feel it is undervalued and has not reached its full potential in promotions and advertising for products and businesses.”
He says there is a developing market for people using wrapping for aesthetic reasons where they want to change the colour or their car or customise it. The material is easily removed and works as a protection for the original paintwork and includes velvets, chromes, spot varnishes, and metallic finishes all easily produced on Roland’s wide-format printers.
Roland DG and Make it in Design invited around 20 designers for a series of
demonstrations by Roland’s Joe Wigzell
Wigzell concludes: “If I wrap a van in an unusual and eye-catching design and take photos and share them on Facebook, and get the client and others to do the same and it goes viral, then potentially 10 million people could see it. That’s marketing.”
Lisa Moncrieff, sales and marketing manager of Make It In Design, adds: “We were thrilled to welcome talented designers in the Make It In Design surface pattern community to a digital technology event held at Roland DG recently.
“The designers were blown away when they realised their designs could literally be applied to anything and everything. This thought-provoking event pushed creative boundaries, sparked new ideas and will certainly inspire future design projects.”
