BTEC Fashion student Melanie Mantle designed the car wrap and wall covering on Epson’s stand
2017 was the 30th anniversary of what started life as the Sign UK exhibition and became Sign & Digital UK in 2002. Simon Eccles went to see what was new.
In 1987 sign production was a fairly small sector dominated by screen printing and litho. Digital production barely figured, mainly as pen plotters that were adapted into self-adhesive vinyl cutters, and a few liquid toner plan printers. True wide-format inkjets only appeared in the early 1990s.
This year’s show attracted 5350 unique visitors, showing a decline compared to previous years – 6200 in 2016, 6807 in 2015. Event director Rudi Blackett said that there have been healthy exhibitor re-bookings already for 2018, which he thinks means there will be more new products – this year they were a bit thin on the ground, which may have affected turnout.
The exhibits were overwhelmingly about digital printing, nearly all of it inkjet, and finishing. A few big names were missing, notably Durst and Agfa, but most of the major suppliers were there on their own stands or with their distributors: Canon/Océ, EFI, Esko, Epson, Fujifilm, HP, Mimaki, Mutoh, Roland DG, SwissQprint and Zünd.
Electronic digital signage (the light-up sort) previously played a growing role but this year was rather low key with fewer stands. It seems to be establishing a separate identity with more in common with so-called ‘digital media’, meaning web- or mobile-based ads, social media and the like.
Mr Blackett said that a particular trend this year was new print substrates, especially for interior décor including wallcoverings: ‘We did a seminar on those and it was packed out,’ he reported. HP was also stressing wallcoverings in particular as applications for its Latex ink printers.
Mr Blackett’s ambition is to attract sign creators – designers – to the show in future. Adobe, Corel and occasionally CADlink have long staged demonstration workshops within the exhibition and they draw significant numbers of visitors. ‘We push the fact that people can get a lot of advice here,’ he said.
In recent years the UK show has been overshadowed by the larger Europe-wide Fespa events – this year’s is in Hamburg in early May. Some exhibitors held off their big announcements until Fespa.
Canon went halfway along that road by showing a wall full of print samples from its UVgel ink printer, the Colorado 1640 (see DP April), while reserving the first public demos of the printer for Fespa. Canon has recently opened a new showroom adjacent to the NEC grounds, so was also ferrying visitors over to see it.
Mutoh’s new ValueJet 1638 UH is a versatile all-rounder for about £35,000
Mutoh didn’t wait for Fespa to demonstrate its new ValueJet 1638UH hybrid printer running on the Colourgen stand, though without the flexible-curing UV ink that will come to the market in June. This is pitched as a versatile all-rounder, offering twin heads and twin LED curing lamps and optional white plus clear inks. Price will be £36,000 list, which is keen for its specification. At the show it was printing onto Foamalux board supplied by Brett Martin, with a variety of effects including multiple layers to give an embossed appearance.
CMYUK introduced a new payment scheme in conjunction with Paragon Bank Business Finance. It’s called CSAF (Consumables Supported Asset Finance) and was inspired by the plate deals common in the litho sector. If CMYUK hardware customers order media consumables via CMYUK, a portion counts to reduce monthly finance repayments. MD Robin East said ‘for a £100,000 spend, anything from 5% to 70% is covered by the scheme.’ He said the media is priced at the market rate and there’s no commitment to specific quantities every month.
Mr East also announced that CMYUK is to be the UK distributor for Esko’s Kongsberg finishing tables and will have a demonstration facility in its Shrewsbury showroom. CMYUK used to be a Zünd distributor.
Marking the quarter century
InkTec celebrated its 25th birthday, with appearances by South Korean senior management for a cake-cutting celebration. On show was its latest Jetrix LXi8, a 3.2 m wide flatbed inkjet with LED curing. It runs at between 33 and 197 m2/hour depending on quality settings. Price will be ‘under £200,000’ and InkTec says this will let customers stay with the Jetrix brand as they outgrow its smaller models.
Cake-cutting at InkTec
Roland DG was showing its latest TrueVis printer-cutters with new inks, emphasising soft furnishings with its TexArt printers and introducing the standalone CAMM-1 contour cutter. The company also previewed a new type of Cloud/web-based signage design package called Creative Media Maker. This has been developed by InClix, a Roland DG development operation in San Diego, California. It’s currently in beta testing and Digital Printer readers are invited to log in and try it out at www.inclix.com with the enrolment code INCLIXDGB. Initially it’s intended to help smallish customers such as flower shops to design printable signs using clip art and other items. A planned white-label version will allow PSPs to brand it themselves.
Epson devoted most of its stand to outdoor graphics, demonstrating its current SureColor models with GS3 eco-solvent inks for printing on vinyls and wraps, while the larger 1.6 m dye sublimation models can be used for soft signage. Phil McMulllin, UK sales manager, Epson UK Pro Graphics Division, says that overall last year Epson had a 30% market share in eco-sol printers, and was the largest seller by the end of 2016.
One end of the Epson stand was dominated by half a car wrapped in printed vinyl, attached to a hoarding with the same design in fabric wallpaper. Epson asked BTEC Fashion students at a Longdean school in Hemel Hempstead school (close to its UK HQ) to propose designs, and the winner Melanie Mantle received a presentation and prize on the stand. The designs were output on Epson eco-solvent and dye sublimation printers by Slam Signs.
Textile twin set
Hybrid Services, Mimaki’s UK distributor, was showing a bit of everything signage-related, but its new Tx300P-1800 1.92 m textile printer is particularly interesting. A forthcoming option will run both dye sublimation and pigment inks side by side, allowing polyester and natural textiles to be printed directly by the same machine.
The new Mimaki JFX200-2531 flatbed was demoed, featuring a double-sized bed so one board can be printed on one side while the next one is positioned. Also demonstrated were the fairly new UJF MkII baby UV flatbeds. These are now 20% faster and feature new ‘longer throw’ print heads, allowing larger portions of domed or dished objects to be printed sharply.
CSL (Colorific Solutions Ltd) was on the Fujifilm stand with a new range of jigs that can hold multiple small 3D items up to 13 mm in thickness for printing on UV hybrid printers such as Fuji’s Acuity 1600 LED.
As ever, finishing played a big part. There were plenty of cutting machines ranging from small Summa and new Roland CAMM-1 roll-fed types up to big flatbed cutting and routing tables from the likes of AG/CAD, Esko and Zünd. Laser cutters and engravers were much in evidence too, with a range of sizes and capabilities from small HPC models costing from £2000 or so up to a giant Trotec SP3000 2.2 x 3.2 m laser table demonstrated at the event.
RollsRoller, the Swedish mounting machine company, showed a new family called Roll-X, available in three bed lengths up to 4.7 m. This is configured differently to previous models, though those remain in production: the gantry does away with the bulky upper cross-piece, making it easier for operators to reach the media.
David Smith from Vivid, showing the company’s foiling laminators
Vivid was emphasising its existing ability to use thermal laminators to put spot foil effects onto digital (toner) print, and has rebranded its Boss foils as Aqua Aura. Marketing manager David Smith was dropping hints about significant new launches later this year. New on the stand was Easycoat, a gluing system to laminate multiple sheets of up to SRA1 size together to bulk them up.
Atech was sharing a spot on the Blackman & White stand. The firm has been concentrating on selling large format finishing kit in recent years, though it used to sell Czech Grapo large format printers until that company went under. MD Allan Ashman says that he’s now selling Texuma dye sublimation textile printers, offering 3.2 m widths and inline calendering at 100 or 210 m2/hour, though high quality modes produce about a quarter of that. Starting price will be around £150,000.
Antalis had an unusual stand laid out as a US diner, with practically all the fixtures and fittings made from media supplied by the company. This included printed wallcoverings, flooring, tabletops and lampshades. The company was talking about its move into hardware partnerships in the UK, though it has sold both in mainland Europe for a while.
Antalis’ US diner stand was kitted out with the media it supplies
Papergraphics was introducing an impressively fitted-out truck prior to a nationwide sales tour. This can transport and run a variety of printers and ancillaries such as mounting and laminating machines, RIPs etc.
In the coming decades signs and sign production may change as radically as in the first 30 years of SDUK, but it’s a safe bet that a lot of them will still be printed.
