Signage company FD Signs has successfully delivered nearly 100,000 social distancing floor graphics for use across the London transport network.

The West London business used its Fujifilm Acuity LED 1600 to produce the work, which was printed to Polar Grip vinyl supplied by Drytac.

‘We do jobs for Transport for London fairly regularly,’ said FD Signs founder and director Fintan Delaney. ‘But we’ve never done anything for them on this scale. We were delighted to get the opportunity and all of our suppliers really stepped up to make sure we had everything we needed to finish the job.

‘As our ink and media requirements went up exponentially during this job we were really impressed that, despite the logistical challenges posed by the coronavirus lockdown, our suppliers managed to get what we needed to us. Our distributor, CSL Digital, was reliable as always, and Fujifilm also stepped in to send ink to us directly when our requirements exceeded what CSL was able to supply within the very tight timeframe we were working to.’

By 20 May the FD Signs team had delivered 6000 graphics a day, for 10 consecutive days, to 30 different installation teams around the capital who installed them in London Underground stations during overnight closures. On top of this, similar graphics were created over the same time period for other parts of the London transport network, including the Croydon Tramlink and Network Rail.

Though FD Signs have had their hybrid Acuity LED 1600 for nearly two years, this was the first time they had used its roll-to-roll function, and Mr Delaney was suitably impressed, ‘We bought the Acuity for printing to rigid board primarily, as we have a separate, dedicated roll-to-roll machine. We’ve been very impressed with its quality and reliability (we’ve never had a customer complaint about an Acuity-printed sign) but this was the first time we’d used its roll-to-roll function for a big job.

‘It is a little slower than our other machine – but the quality is noticeably better, the ink is more durable and it is also very well-built and reliable. We were working it extremely hard – 24 hours a day – for ten days straight, and we had no problems with it whatsoever. We’ll certainly be using the roll-to-roll function much more in the future. I would even be tempted, with hindsight, to have bought this machine alone and not have bothered with a dedicated roll-to-roll printer, given how well it handles both rigid and flexible substrates.’