The Midlands-based exhibition, point-of-sale and signage print specialist continued a three-year relationship with the British Fashion Council that has so far involved the company printing and installing branding for the pop up London Show Rooms event in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Paris and London. Aimed at helping fashion designers to promote themselves across the globe, each London Show Rooms event requires different printed elements. For the latest showing in New York the team at Digital Imaging Services were given five days to produce a series of interior and exterior wall and walkway branding using vinyl graphics, graphic panels, digital projections as well as a number of lightboxes, at its Wolverhampton site. Hexis Brick and Mactac 5828R were used for the cut vinyl lettering, while the lightboxes were created by printing spot white onto polycarbonate sheeting with black lettering printed over the top. Print work was produced on Digital Imaging Services’s Vutek QS3220 and its recently installed Oce Arizona 480GT, with vinyl lettering cut on the firm’s Summa T-Series cutter and acrylic on its Esko Kongsberg digital cutting table. The first plan had been to buy and create the light boxes in New York, but Digital Imaging Services production manager Dave Purcell said the price was prohibitive so they had decided to produce them all in the UK and ship them out. Arriving on site in Manhattan at 8am, a team of three from Digital Imaging Services completed the installation for the event, which was due run for a week, by 8pm the same day. Purcell said: “With this brief we needed to make sure what we did really wowed the audience as soon as they arrived so we needed to make sure everything was perfect. Sometimes the brief can actually change while we are on site so that can be a challenge, but never anything we’ve not been able to meet.” Commenting on the results of its latest installation, a British Fashion Council spokesman said: “We’ve worked with Digital Imaging Services on several of our London Show Rooms events and they have helped us turn neutral spaces into creative and innovative environments where our fashion designers can proudly showcase their collections.” The 14-staff print firm operates from a 1,400m production and warehousing facility in Wolverhampton....

The Midlands-based exhibition, point-of-sale and signage print specialist continued a three-year relationship with the British Fashion Council that has so far involved the company printing and installing branding for the pop up London Show Rooms event in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Paris and London. Aimed at helping fashion designers to promote themselves across the globe, each London Show Rooms event requires different printed elements. For the latest showing in New York the team at Digital Imaging Services were given five days to produce a series of interior and exterior wall and walkway branding using vinyl graphics, graphic panels, digital projections as well as a number of lightboxes, at its Wolverhampton site. Hexis Brick and Mactac 5828R were used for the cut vinyl lettering, while the lightboxes were created by printing spot white onto polycarbonate sheeting with black lettering printed over the top. Print work was produced on Digital Imaging Services’s Vutek QS3220 and its recently installed Oce Arizona 480GT, with vinyl lettering cut on the firm’s Summa T-Series cutter and acrylic on its Esko Kongsberg digital cutting table. The first plan had been to buy and create the light boxes in New York, but Digital Imaging Services production manager Dave Purcell said the price was prohibitive so they had decided to produce them all in the UK and ship them out. Arriving on site in Manhattan at 8am, a team of three from Digital Imaging Services completed the installation for the event, which was due run for a week, by 8pm the same day. Purcell said: “With this brief we needed to make sure what we did really wowed the audience as soon as they arrived so we needed to make sure everything was perfect. Sometimes the brief can actually change while we are on site so that can be a challenge, but never anything we’ve not been able to meet.” Commenting on the results of its latest installation, a British Fashion Council spokesman said: “We’ve worked with Digital Imaging Services on several of our London Show Rooms events and they have helped us turn neutral spaces into creative and innovative environments where our fashion designers can proudly showcase their collections.” The 14-staff print firm operates from a 1,400m production and warehousing facility in Wolverhampton....

The distributor said it would demonstrate applications using the latest substrates to show how products from its Coala, Orafol and 3A Composites ranges could be transformed into floor and window graphics, table wrappings and wall décor. Product marketing director James Jarvis said visitors would see how the use of cutting-edge substrates could deliver the good outputs to give an “all-important competitive edge”. He added: “Our visual communication business offers the widest range of flexible and rigid media and consumables for the large-format digital printing market, the display market and the signage market.” Antalis will be exhibiting some of the 74 products from its Coala collection for large-format printers, which will be displayed as table wrapping, exhibition and display material and window and floor graphics. The collection, which includes 20 products for water-based inks and 54 for solvent, UV and latex ink, features substrates for both indoor and outdoor applications, including papers, self-adhesives, banners, textile, wallpapers and specialty media. The Orafol range of plotter vinyls, digital vinyl and laminates will be used to decorate parts of the floor, windows and wall. These are suitable for indoor and outdoor applications, vehicle wrap, glass cover and illuminated installations. Meanwhile its digital vinyls include soft PVC, special PVC, polymeric and case material with Oraguard laminates. Also on display will be products by 3A Composites, including the Smart-X, Dibond, KAPA and Forex ranges....

The distributor said it would demonstrate applications using the latest substrates to show how products from its Coala, Orafol and 3A Composites ranges could be transformed into floor and window graphics, table wrappings and wall décor. Product marketing director James Jarvis said visitors would see how the use of cutting-edge substrates could deliver the good outputs to give an “all-important competitive edge”. He added: “Our visual communication business offers the widest range of flexible and rigid media and consumables for the large-format digital printing market, the display market and the signage market.” Antalis will be exhibiting some of the 74 products from its Coala collection for large-format printers, which will be displayed as table wrapping, exhibition and display material and window and floor graphics. The collection, which includes 20 products for water-based inks and 54 for solvent, UV and latex ink, features substrates for both indoor and outdoor applications, including papers, self-adhesives, banners, textile, wallpapers and specialty media. The Orafol range of plotter vinyls, digital vinyl and laminates will be used to decorate parts of the floor, windows and wall. These are suitable for indoor and outdoor applications, vehicle wrap, glass cover and illuminated installations. Meanwhile its digital vinyls include soft PVC, special PVC, polymeric and case material with Oraguard laminates. Also on display will be products by 3A Composites, including the Smart-X, Dibond, KAPA and Forex ranges....

“We used to send some of our work out such as binding and complex- or mini-folders but needed to keep as much work as possible in-house,” said operations director Matthew Plant. “Bringing the work in-house enables us to keep quality under control, keep costs down and improve lead times. We have reduced makeready times from 15 or 20 minutes to five minutes.” Plant said the kit, which replaced an older Stahlfolder Ti 52, cost around £100,000 but the savings would make it a cost neutral purchase. The new Stahlfolder would allow the 50-staff business to keep closed gate-folded leaflets, two-up work and folded 16-page sections for PUR binding, he explained. His team looked at kit from three manufacturers and was won over by the Stahlfolder’s automation and ability to store programmes. Plant wanted operator “buy-in” so after checking out the options at Drupa took the finishing team to demos at the suppliers. “They saw the advantages of the Stahlfolder especially improvements in efficiency,” said Plant, whose cross-media business in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, has bumped up turnover more than a third to over £4m in two years through print, marketing and video. “We are expanding, we are diversifying and we are trying to make print come alive again,” said Plant. “But people who chase turnover are going about it the wrong way. It’s about sustaining what we have and always striving for perfection.”...