Business - Events

 

Last night’s first ever Sign & Digital UK awards and networking evening held at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham saw the industry's leading sign and display companies rewarded for their innovative and creative work.

The cream of the graphic display community enjoyed a sit down dinner with first class entertainment and networking opportunities.

The shortlist was announced a month ago and Rudi Blackett, event director, thanked all who entered for making it such an interesting competition and congratulated all the shortlisted finalists and winners.

The winners for this year’s Sign & Digital UK Awards & Networking Event 2011 are:

Best Individual Sign Project
Vision Visual Solutions

Best Multiple Sign Project
Photocast Products
   
Best Vehicle Wrapping Project
Raccoon
  
Best Wide Format Print Project
Service Graphics
  
Best Textile Printing Project 
The Wild Group
  
Best New Use of Wide Format Print
Icon

Rising Star Award
Gordon Dick - Aggregate Industries

The Green Award
Sign 2000

Best Wide Format Printing Company (sponsored by AGFA)
Hollywood Monster

Best Sign Company (sponsored by AGFA)
Sign Box

Rudi commented on the night, “We are thrilled to be able to deliver a first class evening like this for our customers and the industry as a whole. To be able to network with peers in a relaxed and friendly environment and showcase the huge talent that our industry is fostering is a real privilege and we hope to make this awards evening an annual event.”

LFR caught up with Richard Clark, MD of Raccoon, this morning and he was delighted to win the best vehicle wrapping category.  Raccoon submitted a project where they stripped down a mini car, took X-rays of all the internal mechanics, printed the images onto vinyl and wrapped the vehicle - creating a 'skeletal' optical illusion. 

Richard comments, "We're really pleased to have this project formally recognised.  The project itself was not technically complex in terms of the actual wrapping.  However, the creative challenge was immense - it tok two months just to X-ray the car."

During the past two days at Sign & Digital, printMAX - Roland’s most successful partner of 2010 - has sold double the amount of machines than it did in the previous year at the show.  In addition, the company has reported a significant upturn in sales enquiries.

Whilst at the show, printMAX has also secured a major deal and will be announcing full details next month.

Michael Bolton, managing director of printMAX comments, “The first two days of the show have been phenomenally successful and as a result we will definitely be returning to Sign & Digital next year."

EFI has staged the global launch of its Vutek TX3250r 3.2m wide dye sublimation fabric printer at Sign & Digital.

The printer was developed as a result of the growing demand from users wanting the ability to print onto greener textile materials and according to Paul Cripps, Managing Director and Vice President, EMEA Sales, "This is the first public showing of the TX3250r anywhere worldwide." 

Thanks to dye sublimation technology, the TX3250r dyes fibre directly so the textile retains the original look and feel that users prefer. It offers brighter colours than other textile printing methods and is completely odourless. Selected printed textiles can be folded without leaving folding marks.

EFI's new fast drying ink enables the TX3250r to print at speeds up to 100 sq.m. direct to textile and transfer paper (for dying polyester-coated rigid or flexible substrates). Flags can be printed at this high speed in high definition and with excellent colour saturation on both sides

By partnering with Georg and Otto Friedrich for fabric and Klieverik for calendering, EFI is in the unique position of having a total solution - spanning printing, sublimation, finishing and framing - on display on its stand at Sign & Digital.

The printer will be released commercially in late June this year.

Sign & Digital UK opens today and LFR is reporting live from the show.  According to the organisers, there are more graphic display and imaging products being launched at this years show than ever before. There are UK showcases, European firsts and even World Wide launches happening from big brand names such as EFI, Mimaki, Durst, i-Sub and many, many more.

Durst will be showing its latest machine, Omega 1, an entry-level machine, aimed at sign makers, graphic display companies, screen printers, photolabs and studios. EFI are launching their brand new digital textile printer, the EFI VUTEk 3250r and Mimaki have no less than FIVE new products on display, whilst i-Sub will be launching a brand new company no less, called i-Sub Digital Solutions - which will be focussing on efficient new software and electronic retail solutions. i-Sub will be showcasing its comprehensive range of hardware, consumables and ancillary equipment for dye-sublimation markets and i-Sub Digital will be introducing the Agfa Essence UV PET materials, a fantastic range of alternative non-PVC materials for outdoor useage that is has newly begun to distribute. It will also be showcasing a number of popular wide-format printers from the likes of Agfa, Mimaki and HP as well as finishing equipment and the latest media offerings.

Display graphics companies will also feature widely and a number are launching new products, pop up systems and framework display systems to tempt you further. Tecna UK will be demonstrating their T3FabFrame, a tensioned framing system for textile graphics and a huge number of accessories including shelving, lighting, plinths and hanging accessories. Premier Frameworks will be unveiling a number of new products at the show to compliment the existing range of pop up and roller banner units and Grandstands Display are offering large show discounts to all visitors to their stand.

There are many competitions to enter and prizes include a VIP trip to Old Trafford with Hybrid, one of three iPADs from www.hpdesignjet.net when you enter their "oldest printer in town" competition, Spandex are giving away an Epson printer with every Epson GS6000 purchased and a chance to win a Mutoh ValueJet when you pre-register on their website.

Spandex, the one-stop supplier of complete offerings to the digital printing and signmaking industries, has launched Interactive Product Guides that deliver up-to-date information on its wide range of products in an easy-to-use format. These guides are an attractive and user-friendly version of the existing printed and standard PDF versions that make product finding easy for customers.

As a one-stop supplier of many leading materials brands, Spandex’s portfolio of hundreds of thousands of products evolves and increases constantly making electronic versions of the Guides a faster way to communicate new products. The new Interactive Product Guides are a step forward as they offer a range of user-friendly features, adding more value for customers.

“Offering customers a high level of service is key for Spandex and the ability to bring the latest version of our Product Guides to all sign makers in a user friendly format is invaluable. With so many product launches, printed versions are not always up to date and some electronic versions are difficult to use, but the feature-rich Interactive Product Guides we now offer remove this problem” says Phil McMullin, UK Country Manager.

In addition to the realistic page turning effect, which is ideal for browsing the guide as you would do with a printed publication, the new Interactive Product Guide offers three easy ways to navigate: interactive tables of contents, a product index, and a search facility; all of which will take users to the right page within seconds.

Interactive Table of Contents

This feature allows any page of the book to be reached in a moment just by clicking on the desired product on the standard table of contents within the publication.

Product Index

All products are listed on the index on the left navigation, therefore if users are not looking at the Table of Contents they can still get to the right place simply by clicking on the desired item from the index list.

Powerful Text Search

The Interactive Product guides also offer a search facility where customers can type in words related to the desired product or application and a relevant list will appear instantly.

There are many other attractive features in the Interactive Guides including:

Multi-level Zoom

Users can zoom in on the desired product for an easier view and scroll the page using the mouse wheel. It takes one click to zoom in for better reading and another to zoom out again.

Bookmark

Users can bookmark specific pages and at the end of their selection process can review or print the selected pages. This is particularly useful for building a shortlist of possible products for an application or if customers are looking for many items to complete an entire project.

“These Interactive Product Guides are a great tool for finding the right products easily but in addition, Spandex customers know that they can always call 0800 77 26 33 and a specialist will be able to advise them on the right product” concludes Phil McMullin.

Josero will be featuring a range of new products at Sign UK this year. This includes a number of new Triangle inks, which are renowned for their reliability and performance and are a fraction of the cost of OEM inks. The inks which will be available on the stand are:

• Triangle Inks for HP5000/5500 cartridges 
• Triangle inks for HP8000 cartridges 
• Triangle inks Eco Bulk system for the Mimaki JV33  and JV5 

These will be complimented by Josero’s new printer, which will also be featured on the stand.

The new Redjet super wide 3.2m solvent or bio printer

This 3.2m solvent printer for banner, flex and paper is capable of 720 dpi and up to 75 square metres per hour. The printer is easily maintainable with low ink costs, plus a full parts and labour manufacturer’s warranty.

The above inks and printer will strengthen Josero’s product offering to the UK inkjet industry. Over the past six years Josero has positioned itself as a serious player in the inkjet market, and is now firmly established as a leader within the market. The team is made up of experts who have been in the industry for decades and pride themselves on offering excellent customer service and technical advice to all their customers. Over the years, Josero has built up a team of dealers across the UK and Ireland, so customers can deal with local suppliers who offer friendly and expert advice on the full range of Josero products.

Come and see these new products and meet the Josero team plus many of their dealers at Sign UK on Stand D2 and F2 from 12th – 14th April at the NEC.