Wide-Format & Signage May 2019

MAY 2019

42 W indigo Signs Takes Soft Signage to a New Level 44 T he Urban Building Wrap Game 50 T echtextil 2019

Gladiators of the Sign Business: Sign Franchise Review p.32

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What’s In a Name—

or a Number?

A

lede appeared in a somewhat misleading (misleding?)

Washington Post1 story back in February that caused a bit of consternation in our industry—and even stirred Dr. Joe Webb to emerge from his cocoon of retirement to comment on PIA’s response2.

The Post reported that “printer” and “screen printer” were no longer official jobs — at least as far as the Labor Department’s flagship release was concerned. The same goes for “printing support” jobs such as platemaking and prepress work.

Here’s the thing. That’s not entirely true. Now, this may seem a bit “Inside Baseball,” but it represents an issue that is of critical importance in understanding our industry.

The data that we report at WhatTheyThink comes from the Commerce Dept.’s Census Bureau and the Labor Dept.’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the former of which publishes the quinquennial Economic Census and annual County Business Patterns, and the latter of which publishes monthly employment reports.

All U.S. businesses are categorized by NAICS (the North American Industrial Classification System). The broadest classification is the three-digit NAICS. For our purposes, NAICS 323 is “Printing and Related Support Activities.” When we report the value of print shipments and other data, it’s for businesses classified in NAICS 323. Three-digit NAICS codes are further divided into specific subcategories.

Two things to note about NAICS codes.

The first is that they are selected by individual businesses when they fill out tax and other government forms. The second is that NAICS codes are always in flux as businesses and industries change with time.

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So every five-year Economic Census triggers a NAICS revision, and in fact printing is no stranger to them. Until the 2012 Economic Census, Support Activities for Printing (32312) had been further broken down into separate Prepress Services and Tradebinding. No more. As these businesses started to dwindle in number, the Census Bureau (and BLS) had a harder time tracking them since no one was reporting themselves as such.

Industries and markets are dynamic things; we should not be surprised, especially today, that the old classifications are no longer entirely relevant.

After all, screen printers have been adding more and more digital equipment to tap into new markets and applications.

So, would they continue to classify themselves as “screen printers”—or as something that better reflects what their businesses actually do? The trick for analysts and statisticians is to find out what that “something else” is. Remember, it’s all about what these businesses consider themselves to be, not what we would like them to be.

The current NAICS system for printing is still in effect as of the 2017 Economic Census, but in 2022 we will see further NAICS consolidation.

Ultimately, there are still plenty of businesses doing printing—we just need to find out where they are and what they call themselves. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21063275 ■ https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/08/ stop-presses-commercial-printers-other-vanishingjobs-labor-department-cant-track-anymore/?utm_ term=.43f252f50a46.

2 http://whattheythink.com/news/93818-printing-industriesamerica-bureau-labor-statistics-print-still-here-were-justevolving-faster-ever/.

3 https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesbmart.htm.

1

Richard Romano Managing Editor richard@whattheythink.com

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CONTENTS

MAY 2019

PRINTING NEWS COVER STORY

8 Embellishments: What’s Old Is New Again and Still Adds Value!

8

12 The Most Innovative Display Graphics Business Ever?

McGowans Print Sets the Standard!

14 Is Personalization Important to Labels and Packaging?

16 Opportunities: But Where Do I Start?

18 Health Care Is Still a Top Issue

12

26

50 Techtextil 2019 Generates Inspiration, Excitement 54 Minnows, Whales and Digital Technologies, Oh, My! 60 Association Insights: APTech

Departments 4 27

Editorial New Products

30 Watch List: Video 53 Wide-Format & Signage News

21 Case Study of Projecting Next Year’s Income

58

22 Buying Web-to-Print Software Under Duress

In the Know- Events

24 Why Do You Need a Print MIS Administrator?

26 Do You Practice This Art of Top Print Executives?

WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE 32 2019 Sign and Display Graphics Franchise Review

44

48 Unique.Fashion Provides Tools, Community for Designers

Classifieds/Supplier Directory

ISA International Sign Expo

May 23-26

Fespa

May 14-17

IPMA 2019

June 2-6

Ricoh Interact

June 4-6

Smithers Pira Digital Print for Packaging/Textiles June 4-7 EskoWorld

June 24-26

Search for us…

42 Windigo Signs Takes Soft Signage to the Next Level

twitter:

44 The Urban Building Wrap Game

facebook:

@PrintingNews; @WideFormatSign @whattheythink Printing News; wideformatsignage @whattheythink linkedin:

TEXTILE

48 6

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46 Retail Expert Shares Thoughts on Digital Transformation

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DIGITAL & INKJET © Scodix

Embellishments:

What’s Old Is New Again and Still Adds Value! — Part 1 There is no doubt that embellishment does add value to the printed product.

Especially with the more recent introduction of digital embellishment technologies, designed to complement digital printing technologies. New developments in digital embellishment are happening all the time now that it has finally begun to capture market awareness. In part one of this two-part feature, David Zwang will look at the added value and long history of embellishments.

8

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DIGITAL & INKJET Article by David Zwang

E

mbellishment has been a function of print production for as long as there has been printing. In fact, it almost goes back to the beginning of the writing of documents. The process of embellishment has also been known as “illumination” and can be traced back to religious texts before the first century. The process, at that time, included adding silver and gold to both text and images to illume the content. While we may not think of color printing as embellishment, color was also used to bring attention and additional value to documents for thousands of years as well. Of course, embellishment and even “printing,” at that point was done by hand using colored dyes and inks in a very tedious process.

Enter technology. Depending on which side of the discussion you sit, printing (or producing multiple copies from a master) was either invented by the Chinese around the 1st century or the Germans in the 14th–15th century. In either case, embellishment was still a fairly manual process.

By this point changing or adding color through the use of “multiple impressions” or plates was possible, but the use of gold and silver was still a manual process.

Hot foil stamping, which uses a painted carrier sheet which when hot stamped with a die (plate) impressed on the receiving media was first believed to be used in the 19th century. These carrier sheets are coated with different colors including metallics, a release layer, and an adhesive. At this point it was used for book printing, primarily covers, but as the availability became wider, so did adoption. The introduction of cold foil printing or stamping in the 20th century made it even easier. In this process, an adhesive is printed using a normal printing plate or cylinder and the coated carrier comes in contact with the adhesive and the metallic coating is pulled off the carrier and remains on the substrate.

Another form of embellishment requires the manipulation of the substrate. Examples would be embossing, debossing, and decorative die-cutting. In the case of embossing and debossing, a “die” and a mirror

David Zwang David Zwang specializes in process analysis, and strategic development of firms involved publishing and packaging across the globe. Contact him at david@zwang.com

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Initial page of the Gospel of St. Mark from the Lindisfarne Gospels (c. 700-715 CE), created at the Lindisfarne Priory on the “Holy Island” off the coast of Northumbria, Britain.

image “counter” is used to put specific pressure on the substrate in order to create a visual representation of the die “in” the substrate instead of “on” the substrate like the foils or inks. Finally, we have decorative die-cutting, which could be as simple as a window in a page to see through. This type of die-cutting uses a similar principal to embossing and debossing in that there is a die and a counter, the difference being that with die-cutting you are usually cutting through the substrate and not just making an impression in the substrate. Of course, die-cutting has other functions as well, like creating the shapes necessary to construct packaging or other dimensional structures.

There is no doubt that embellishment does add value to the printed product, especially with the more recent introduction of digital embellishment technologies designed to complement digital printing technologies.

According to a Keypoint Intelligence-InfoTrends study Beyond CMYK: The Use of Special Effects in Digital May 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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4/11/19 4:41 PM

DIGITAL & INKJET Printing, print enhancement volume will grow at a CAGR of 27% through 2020. Profit margins on digital print enhancement range from 50% to 400%, and importantly print buyers will pay a premium of 24% to 89% over CMYK for print enhancements. So why isn’t it more widely used? Until the introduction of digital embellishment technologies, the reasons embellishment hasn’t reached the level of adoption that it could—or even should—are limitations in experience, equipment availability, and operational costs. Specialized companies, which use their experience and amortize their equipment across many customers and incoming jobs, were—and still are—used as an outside service to add these embellishments to a printer’s products.

Unlike commercial printing presses, flexo presses have supported foil, embossing, and decorative die-cutting embellishment inline for years. It is only logical since they are used for label and packaging production, where brandowners are always looking for a way to increase their shelf appeal.

Digital embellishment technologies have now been introduced to replace most of those analog solutions and in many different configurations designed to make it easy to implement in your own facility.

Digital embellishment technologies have now been introduced to replace most of those analog solutions and in many different configurations designed to make it easy to implement in your own facility. It is timelier and more cost-effective as well, since you no longer need to create physical plates and dies, instead using digital print technology like toners and inkjet heads. The primary technologies used in digital embellishment are varnish deposition usually using inkjet printheads or clear polymers using the electrophotographic processes; high-build polymer dispersion cured with UV; metallic foils; metallic “nano” particles in a varnish or polymer 10

Gutenberg Bible excerpt © The British Library Board

suspension; UV-curable resin for creasing/embossing; lasers for die-cutting, and various combinations of all of the above. This has also opened up the possibilities of using embellishments on a more regular basis.

Whether it is all about design enhancement or security, the needs for embellishment today isn’t that different than what it was in the 1st century, adding awareness and value to content. In part two, we will take a look at the new tools for embellishment add value to print and packaging production.

More to Come…

I would like to address your interests and concerns in future articles as it relates to the manufacturing of Print, Packaging and Labels, and how if at all it drives Industry 4.0. If you have any interesting examples of hybrid and bespoke manufacturing, I am anxious to hear about them. Please feel free to contact me at david@zwang.com with any questions, suggestions or examples of interesting applications. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21063686 ■

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For more information, visit Printingnews.com/10006773

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DISPLAY GRAPHICS

Most Innovative Display

The

Graphics Business Ever? McGowans Print Sets the

Standard

Flexography is going through a renaissance. While it has been around since the late 19th century, it has never really had a role in “quality” printing, although that seems to be changing. This change is proving that it can fight off the increased use of digital printing for packaging production with better productivity and lower cost.

Article by Cary Sherburne

M

cGowans Print, with offices in Dublin and Belfast, has been a digital business from the beginning, an early adopter of the INCA Eagle. Today, celebrating its 30th year in business, the company has an annual turnover of €20 million, 140 employees, three manufacturing plants and more than 24 different printing devices.

McGowans has 20,000 square feet of manufacturing space in Belfast, and two plants in Dublin, one with 70,000 square feet and one with 35,000 square feet.

McGowans specializes in the display graphics market, heavily involved in manufacturing freestanding corrugated displays for the retail industry.

“We have been printing with 12

the Agfa MPress, which was the fastest in its class when it was developed,” Owner Mal McGowan said. “We also have two Durst flatbeds – one automated 1030 and

Mal McGowan At Desk

a semi-automated 1312. We also have a Scitex 10000. And we have 3 meter and 5 meter Dursts for soft signage.”

McGowan was watching the single pass market for some time and was communicating with EFI as the EFI Nozomi C18000 digital direct-tocorrugated single-pass press was in development.

“They had quite a good specification on the press,” he said.

“One of the key things for us was that it could print a sheet size of 1.8 by 3 meters, and no one else can print anything near that size. Other

Mal With Nozomi & Units

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DISPLAY GRAPHICS systems were geared primarily for the packaging, rather than the display graphics market. When we finally had a demonstration, we were awestruck with not only the speed of 75 linear meters per minute, but also the exceptional quality, far better than any flatbed technology.”

About one and a half years ago, McGowans was one of the earliest Nozomi installs. McGowans’ interest was a bit of a surprise for EFI, according to its previous CEO, Guy Gecht, since the target for Nozomi was the packaging market.

McGowans’ interest opened a new perspective for EFI as to the potential Nozomi market reach.

Did the press live up to expectations after a year and a half?

“The reality surpassed expectations,” he said. “They continually improve the quality. The quality is better than litho lam in most cases. The reliability is great.

And what it has helped us do is grow our footprint with our existing customer base as well as attract new customers in Ireland, the UK and Europe.”

Before the Nozomi, McGowans’ ability to compete was hampered.

“Traditional digital flatbeds are good for runs up to maybe 400,” he said. “With the Nozomi, you really can compete head on with litho lam or any amount of floor display units – 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 – whatever it takes.”

In addition to stepping up its production of standalone displays, Nozomi has also enabled McGowans to get into the corrugated box business.

“We never could have done that before,” he said, “produce short to medium runs of corrugated boxes.”

The company is running solid board of two mils down to 1,000 microns, using them for point of sale, hanging mobiles and more.

12-13_McGowan.indd 13

Thermoformed Santa Detail

“We are also printing on plastic Corex board and testing other plastics. We’re building up a library of different substrates we can print.

EFI is also developing a top feeder, and we are looking forward to adding that, which will allow us to print on paper down to 200 grams.”

McGowans’ retail customers use Corex-based displays for short-term outdoor signage, and the company

Bruno & Michal at Expo

also creates some of its display units from Corex.

“We increased turnover in the first year by €3 million,” McGowan said, “and we are targeting an increase of €6 million purely based on the Nozomi before putting in a second one.”

McGowans’ 35,000 square foot Dublin manufacturing space is dedicated to the Nozomi.

“When we add a second one, we will need even more space. It creates a lot of print. In fact, we don’t have any problem at all keeping up with print demands. Our challenge now is automating finishing.”

The company added more automated GlueJets and installed automatic die cutting from Young Shin that can keep up with the Nozomi, cutting about 2,000 sheets per hour.

“Finishing flexibility is critical in the display market,” McGowan said.

“Every piece is bespoke for that product and that customer.”

In addition to acquiring a Nozomi, McGowans also has a Massivit large format 3D printer, another example of the company’s bold and innovative approach to the market.

“We have a subsidiary called Eclipse 3D (www.eclipse3d.ie). We are doing all kinds of 3D billboards and other out-of-home displays. We are creating soft signage with 3D lettering, something we couldn’t normally do. There is no limit to what the Massivit can actually do. We put in thermoforming as well, so we can create a thermoformed header board. The 2D/3D combination looks great.”

We’ll stay in touch with McGowans to learn what other new innovations they will bring to their customers.

Take a look at the company’s website galleries at mcgowansprint.com, and eclipse3d.ie. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21063818 ■ May 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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LABELS & PACKAGING

Is Personalization Important to Labels and Packaging?

We have all seen the studies and even experienced firsthand the value of personalization in direct mail and other forms of communication. But what about the value of personalization in products and packaging?

There are a lot of projections into what the market value “could” be, but how do you take advantage of that?

Article by David Zwang

B

y now we have all seen the studies and even experienced first-hand the value of personalization in direct mail and other forms of communication. But what about the value of personalization in products and packaging? There are a lot of projections into what the market value could be. For example, according to a 2017 study, the expected value of the personalized gift market will increase 55% from 2016 to 2021 to an estimated value of $31 billion. Another study from Deloitte estimates that 50% of millennial and Gen Z consumers express a desire for personalized products, or that 70% of shoppers are willing to pay 10% more for personalized products.

If accurate, that is all great news, but how do you take advantage

14

of that? Purchasing technology to support personalization has been available for a while, and new technology is being released regularly. However, it doesn’t answer the questions about which consumers will buy the personalized products and, more importantly, why.

HP was interested in understanding the “who and whys” and set out on a journey to learn for themselves to better drive marketing efforts. Ultimately, they would also use that information to develop tools to help drive the need and then identify and target those opportunities for their service provider customers.

How to Define A recent HP-funded study performed by sparks & honey, a consultancy division of Omnicom, attempts to identify and better define those drivers and potential opportunities. The study, “Exploring Personalization,” produced in September 2018, studied over 45 million online conversations in four markets - U.S., China, Germany and France - and looked at six unique drivers. These six drivers were determined to represent the way that consumers view themselves in relationship to their product decisions. The HP Personalization Pinwheel identifies each of the drivers. While it may seem a little

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LABELS & PACKAGING

abstract at first, if you look at each of these drivers you can probably see how you and others could identify with each of these. Each of these segments shows the percentage of total respondents that align with each of them.

However, the study also found that while the desire for personalization transcends generations, there is a definite difference in how much each of the generations desire personalization, and which of the drivers are more important to them. The Gen Z group shows over 50% are open to and even desire personalization. Ultimately each of these drivers can be matched to specific types of personalization

14-15_Personalization.indd 15

efforts that can be further refined through the information in the full study.

Not all markets lend themselves to personalization or, more importantly, not all consumers express the desire to pay for personalized products.

What Next?

HP’s goal is to take the information developed from this study and work first with the agencies and then the brands to help educate and inspire them. This in turn should trickle down to the service providers for production. The study is made available to HP “partners” for a fee.

While this study may not be directly targeted at print service

providers, it does provide some clarity to consumer awareness and purchasing decisions around personalization. As service providers continue to look for new ways to engage their customers and drive more print through their digital presses, this is very valuable information. Currently the vast majority of purchasing is done by the Boomers and Generation X. However, the millennials and Generation Z are the future, and understanding drivers, buying habits, trends and preparing for them will undoubtedly provide a good platform for growth.

More to Come …

I would like to address your interests and concerns in future articles as it relates to the manufacturing of Print, Packaging and Labels, and how, if at all, it drives future workflows including “Industry 4.0.” If you have any interesting examples of hybrid and bespoke manufacturing, I am very anxious to hear about them. Please feel free to contact me at david@zwang.com with any questions, suggestions or examples of interesting applications.

Find article here PrintingNews. com/21063051 ■

May 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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LABELS & PACKAGING

Opportunities:

But Where Do I Start?

Whether you are already a converter or are a print service provider looking at expanding your product and services portfolio, it is important to develop a long-term strategy in order to capture your share of the changing and developing market. In this new series, I will take a deep dive into the opportunities, changes and challenges that you need to focus on in Labels and Packaging.

Article by David Zwang

W

e keep hearing about all of the opportunities available in labels and packaging production, but where can you find them? And which ones are right for you and your company?

Whether you are already a converter or are a print service provider looking at expanding your product and services portfolio, it is important to develop a long-term strategy in order to capture your share of the developing and changing markets.

Where do you start? Purchasing new technology? In essence, if “you build it, will they come”? If it is about technology, what type of print and converting/finishing

and embellishment technology should you be looking at: flexo, gravure, offset, toner, inkjet, hybrid, bespoke? Drupa 2020 is about a year away. What should you look for when you get there? What about workflow? Does one size fit all, or do you need to create a workflow that will enable you to integrate all of your production processes? I recently touched on personalization in packaging. Is that the secret key to success? If you are a commercial printer and really don’t have an interest in expanding into Labels and Packaging production, are there lessons you can learn from converters to enhance your business?

There really are no quick and easy answers to many of these questions, and to address each of them with the necessary focus to enable you to fully understand them and prepare to take action requires more than one article.

So, I will take each of them on in this new series, but in the context of the bigger picture.

Part 1: By the Numbers To get this started, let’s take a look at some of the current and projected future market numbers, and perhaps put them in some perspective.

According to Smithers Pira report— “The Future of Packaging: Long-Term Strategic Forecasts to 2028,” the total value of packaging

The volume trends of packaging print showed an extremely healthy market.

© IDC

16

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LABELS & PACKAGING A general increase in volume seems to hold across all of the packaging types.

© IDC

is projected to rise at a CAGR of 2.84%, from $906.59 billion in 2018 to in excess of $1.2 trillion by 2028. Additionally, digital print for packaging is projected to grow at an average CAGR of 13.6% in N.A. and 16.2% globally.

While that is a healthy increase, a more interesting factor is that according to an IDC Digital Printing for Packaging survey, the volume trends of packaging print over the last two years across most of the packaging segments showed an extremely healthy market with over 80% of the respondents reporting year over year increases.

Furthermore, while the Smithers study shows that 35% of the substrate used in 2018 was paperboard, IDC reports that a general increase in volume seems to hold across all of the packaging types.

Customized packaging will increase to $25.58 billion by 2025 projecting a CAGR of 5.1%, according to Research Report Insights’ “Personalized Packaging Market” report.

Digging deeper as I covered in a recent article on the personalization study funded by HP, while consumers were interested and even willing to pay more for

16-17_Opportunities.indd 17

personalization of products, it was very dependent on the population segment and product types.

One of the fastest growing segments in packaging is corrugated, with an estimated global growth of parcel shipments of up to 31.5kg increasing from 74.4 billion in 2018 to 100 billion in 2020, according to Pitney Bowes.

How do you take those packages and turn them into marketing opportunities rather than just a brown shipping container? What kind of equipment and processes are needed to address those needs, especially in light of the significant increase in production printing technology targeted at the corrugated market?

According to IDC, over 63% of brand owners don’t have a preference for what technology is used provided the finished product meets their requirements. While digital print is usually thought of as higher cost than analog technologies, we have already seen that some of the newer digital technologies can compete almost head to head.

The answers to the questions I posed are not as clear as one would think. There is no doubt that

packaging print production is full of opportunities, as you can see from this small sampling of projections.

Are these opportunities the right fit for you?

“If you are already a packaging converter there could be good times ahead, especially if you are not in the commodity side of the business,” said Amy Machado, research manager for IDC. “If you are a print service provider looking at packaging print production as a way to expand your offerings, you need to first think about what your value proposition will be in order to even get the attention of packaging buyers.”

More to Come …

I would like to address your interests and concerns in future articles as it relates to the manufacturing of Print, Packaging and Labels, and how, if at all, it drives future workflows including “Industry 4.0.” If you have any examples of hybrid and bespoke manufacturing, I am very anxious to hear about them. Please feel free to contact me at david@zwang.com with any questions, suggestions or examples of interesting applications. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21063048 ■ May 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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TRADE SERVICES

Health Care Is Still a Top Issue Article by Debra Thompson

O

nce again, health care has become a major issue for American citizens, and it remains a significant problem in the workplace. Despite recent efforts to reduce the cost of health care, and in particular the cost of prescriptions, it still remains a burden to providers, insurers and employers, and it is still oppressive for small business employees.

The U.S. population has experienced a significant increase in the incidence of serious health conditions and their accompanying high medical costs as evidenced by the following statistics: ■■ In a recent report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 30.3 million Americans have diabetes and another 84.1 million have pre-diabetes, a condition that if not treated often leads to Type 2 Diabetes within five years.

■■ The CDC also reported that 93.3 million U.S. adults (39.8%) were obese in 2015 to 2016.

The report also stated that the medical costs for obese people is $1429 higher than for people of normal weight.

■■ The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that approximately one in five adults in the U.S. Debra Thompson Debra Thompson is president of TG & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in “The Human Side of Business” specifically for the graphics industry. Debra can be reached at debra@tgassociates.com or www.tgassociates.com .

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experiences mental illness in a given year. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. ■■ Eight in 10 Americans, in a 2009 study, reported money and the economy as significant sources of stress, and the cost of health care has been found to be 46% higher for employees with high levels of stress.

There are other factors which have aggravated current health care issues.

■■ The overuse of painkillers has become prevalent and has fueled an opioid addiction crisis.

■■ Many areas have a shortage of doctors. My husband and I have both had our primary care doctors retire, and we have had to search for new doctors to handle this critical role.

As small business owners, it is essential that you understand all these issues and the role that you play in supporting your employees as they struggle to deal with their personal issues. Understanding why wellness matters and why you need to invest time and emotional support for employees is not only the right thing to do, but it’s also linked to the success of your business.

No doubt that it is difficult to add this burden to the cost of doing business, but it remains essential to recognize the impact on employees’ ability to focus on job performance when they are having to deal with major health problems at home. All too often owners have forgotten the human side of their business.

Take time to conduct a formal review and give employees your honest feedback, goals and expectations and then listen to their issues and concerns.

Try to find out what is really going

on in their lives and see if there is something you can do to help them so they in turn can do a better job for you.

Employers need to invest in moral and emotional support for employees. They need to become more committed to providing tools and solutions to help employees lower their health risks and the associated costs.

The CDC estimates that more than 75% of U.S. health care costs are due to chronic conditions that are largely preventable by reducing behaviorbased risk factors. Therefore, providing wellness opportunities would be beneficial. Some examples are: ■■ Training on health issues and nutrition ■■ Exercise equipment on site ■■ Incentives for participation in health related events ■■ Gym memberships Employee wellness extends to their financial health. There are actions that business owners can take to eliminate employee stress due to their financial dilemma. Programs for financial wellness can include: ■■ Increased compensation and benefits ■■ Education on productive saving and spending habits ■■ Budgeting tools ■■ Financial coaching ■■ Life event planning ■■ Education on employerprovided benefits The health crisis may be affecting your employees more than you realize. Make sure you are aware of what is bothering your employees.

To maintain a strong bottom line, you need to make sure you have healthy employees. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21063044 ■

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CONSULTANTS

Projecting Next Year’s Income T Case Study of Article by Tom Crouser

he biggest reason most don’t run their business with a budget is that we don’t know what sales will be like next year. Yet that’s easily resolved.

A budget allows you to rest easy knowing that if you meet certain goals, you’ll do well financially.

Unfortunately, too many equate a budget goal with a sales goal. If I project a 20% increase in sales next year, suddenly I have 20% more cash to spend. So, I plan to spend it. And if the increase doesn’t happen, I’m spending more than I’m taking in, so why bother?

So, first establish a financial or spending budget. Then establish a sales goal. They are not the same. Your spending budget assures you will make money. Hit the sales goal and that will assure you will make a lot of money.

We introduced this sustainable budgeting to our affiliates in 2007, just before the great recession and the process saved many of them from financial disaster.

List your monthly sales from highest to lowest. Now eliminate the three highest sales months and average the lowest nine. Multiply that average by 12 and your total is your annual sustainable sales to use for your financial budget.

Tom Crouser Tom Crouser can be reached at tom@ cprint.com for more information on how CPrint International can be of help to you in your business or call his cell (304) 541-3714.

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Why? There are several reasons, but the biggest is that estimating future sales always means we guess higher than where we are. That creates excess revenue to begin spending immediately. And we can always increase expenses faster than we can increase sales.

The second biggest reason is that when we use a traditional average method of calculating monthly sales, we use the profits from our good months to subsidize the poor months and, overall, end up with little net income.

Third, we need to realize that the game of business is not won over a year, even though that’s how we calculate our income taxes. In business, a year is a season of 12 games. We win or lose each month because most of our costs are fixed, like rent.

Rent is the same if it’s a February with 28 days or a July with 31. Same with equipment lease payments, depreciation and practically every other overhead item we have. Sure, some will vary slightly, like electricity and maybe utilities, but they’re mainly flat rather than fluctuating widely.

Same with payroll. In high volume months, people might work overtime.

In slow months, they might take some time off. But like overhead, our employee expenses are mainly flat rather than fluctuating widely. And, by the way, owner wages should not be considered here for budget purposes. That comes later.

Finally, direct materials, or our papers, toners, solvents and solutions, do vary with sales but only as an

absolute dollar amount, and usually not as a percentage of sales. So, plan to spend that same percentage on future sales.

Now back to sales. Average our sustainable sales (the lowest nine months) and you should find that your historic monthly sales are within striking distance of your monthly sustainable sales. That’s much better than averaging your actual sales where typically six months are below your projection and six are above.

Imagine a football coach telling the fans, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to win 50% of our games this year.

Use sustainable sales and increase your probability of monthly wins to around 75%.

Now, it’s a matter of good ole adding and subtracting.

Sustainable sales minus the historic percentage of direct materials, minus your monthly wage and overhead budget should give you a positive number. If it doesn’t, reduce your planned wage and/or overhead expenses until it does.

Once it does, then you can consider how much in owner wages that you should take out. It’s like seeing what the family farm makes, and then deciding how much of it to spend on yourself. Build the lavish barn first, then build the modest family home.

Oh, yes. What about the sales goal? Add 20% to the budgeted sales number and that’s a good sales goal.

Budget expenses on $500,000 of sales and sell $600,000, and you’ll make lots of money. Yes, it’s that easy. Find article here PrintingNews. com/21063187 ■

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SOFTWARE & WORKFLOW

Buying Web-to-Print Software Your customers want convenience. Printers who prioritize around making it easy to do business with their customers will differentiate themselves. Don’t wait until your best customers demand online ordering and self-service access to the business they do with you—do it proactively and strategically instead of under duress.

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SOFTWARE & WORKFLOW Article by Jennifer Matt

H

ere’s my favorite definition of “duress”: compulsion by threat or force.

When a printer’s top customer decides to make online ordering a non-negotiable requirement, printers go shopping for web-to-print solutions under duress.

What kind of decisions do you think you make when you’re under “compulsion by threat or force”? Not very good ones.

All printers are humans, and all humans who own and operate businesses in developed countries carry cellphones and spend a significant amount of time online.

These same humans buy plane tickets, rent cars and coordinate hotel stays without talking to customer service agents, because they can do it faster at their convenience (e.g. while watching TV at 10 p.m.)

Why is it still a discussion whether your customers would want to order from your print shop in a self-service online fashion? Are we really still having this conversation in 2019?

The digital world is changing what drives customer loyalty: How convenient are you to do business with?

Could a competitive printer who has similar equipment and capacity sneak into some of your biggest customers with the message of convenience? Just imagine a talented sales representative walking up to the decision maker at your customer’s business whom you’ve known for 20 years. They hand over their phone and say, “Our system allows you to easily place reorders from your phone.” That’s how I would approach print sales today, because most printers are vulnerable to the “convenience sales pitch.” If the tools you offer your customer to engage with you are email, phone and fax— you are vulnerable.

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Could you imagine being displaced by some of your longest term customers because you don’t provide a way for the customer to check their order status online, easily reorder from you or request an estimate?

You don’t need to imagine. I get a call at least once per week that sounds something like this: “Our top customer, whom we’ve been dutifully serving for 20+ years, is going out to RFP and the first requirement is an online ordering system. Can you help us find one and implement it, all in the next 45 days?”

Your customer basically had to resort to threatening you in order for you to take their level of convenience seriously.

That is buying print software under duress. It isn’t strategic and it isn’t fun, but it is very stressful because you’re not implementing software to build differentiation or go into a new market. Your customer basically had to resort to threatening you in order for you to take their level of convenience seriously.

Think about the Uber/Lyft ridesharing movement. We are obsessed with convenience. If the car isn’t coming in less than four minutes, we are now outraged.

Before Uber/Lyft, I would call a taxi in San Francisco to go to the airport.

I would get treated poorly on the phone by a disgruntled dispatcher who acted like I woke him up. Then I would wait and wait and wait and sometimes they just didn’t show up.

How did they get away with that for so long? And how did they not see that we all have had sophisticated phones, tracking devices and GPS in our pockets for years? Convenience is king in rides. Taxicabs simply didn’t prioritize the customer’s convenience.

Print is struggling to compete with digital communication. Print is still very relevant, but we are not moving fast enough on the convenience side of things. Print customers are burdened with calls, faxes, emails and attached files—basically, you’re asking the customer to work very hard in order to do business with you.

Don’t wait until you’re under duress and having to save one of your top customers to prioritize customer convenience. Duress is a terrible condition in which to change processes or introduce your team to a new technology. It’s no way to make a strategic technology decision either.

Your team should not be bothered by simple orders. What if moving to a web-to-print solution gave your best CSRs 20% of their time back everyday? These people are some of the most knowledgeable people about your customers in your business. Can you imagine what else you could accomplish with that time? Find article here PrintingNews. com/21063045 ■ Jennifer Matt Jennifer Matt writes, speaks, and consults with printers worldwide who realize their ability to leverage software is critical to their success in the Information Age.

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SOFTWARE & WORKFLOW

Why Do You Need a

Print MIS Administrator?

Software is like a press; it needs to be staffed and maintained. Software is like your business; it needs to keep evolving. Your most important piece of software is your Print MIS—dedicate the tasks of your Print MIS to one individual.

Article by Jennifer Matt

O

ne of the most memorable experiences in the life of a print business is the process of implementing a Print MIS. Unfortunately, they’re not often fond memories. We’ve written a lot about how hard this is on a print business because it requires you to both run your business and transition your business to a new, trusted system of record.

What about after implementation?

Do you hear printers talking about

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how great their Print MIS is after the implementation is over and they have a trusted system of record? Not so much. I never like to compare software to printing presses, but I’m going to make this the exception, because I think it helps make a solid point.

When you purchase a new press, you are all over the manufacturer to get it up and running; start the ROI! Once it’s running, you have people operating it.

You also have your team doing routine maintenance and keeping track of

service calls. You are using the press, and that means you have to take care of your investment so it continues to deliver value to your business.

Print MIS software needs care and feeding, too. This feeding isn’t quite like what a press operator does, but for our purposes, we’re going to compare the Print MIS Administrator to your lead press operator. Your Print MIS Administrator’s job is to maintain, upgrade and continue to tweak the configuration of your Print MIS forever. It never stops; we get a lot of

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SOFTWARE & WORKFLOW other garbage data that slows your operation down and makes you more likely to make mistakes.

Without a Print MIS Administrator you don’t know when software upgrades are coming, you don’t know what’s in them and you fall behind the vendor’s product roadmap. You ask the vendor for customization for features they introduced three releases ago. When it does come time to make an upgrade, you are so far behind that it takes an act of Congress to get you to the latest release and a lot of downtime.

resistance to this role because print business owners don’t see software as needing to be staffed like printing presses do. Your Print MIS requires regular care and feeding by someone who is making it their responsibility to learn how to optimize the software for your business.

What happens when you don’t have a Print MIS Administrator?

Many people across your organization configure the system, without any strategic direction or deep knowledge. You end up with 200 product types, many of them duplicates with no organization or naming convention (it slows your estimators down). You end up with 100 different “Ship Via’s” because you gave admin access to configuring forms to too many people and they simply add another one rather than look for an existing one. Your customer list starts to migrate in weird directions; people type things like “***DO NOT USE THIS ONE***” in the company name field and

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Your Print MIS never stops being tweaked, improved and updated.

What happens when you have a really good Print MIS Administrator?

Your Print MIS never stops being tweaked, improved and updated.

This person is following the vendor’s product roadmap carefully. They have a plan for the upgrades—not to be on the bleeding edge, but to take the upgrade after the bleeding-edge printers have found all the bugs and patches have been applied. Your excellent Print MIS Administrator goes to the annual user conference, has a personal relationship with the product manager and participates in a peer group.

Your Print MIS Administrator is very busy because your entire team knows that if you need something from the Print MIS, they have an

internal resource who can either fulfill the request or can reach out to the vendor or a consultant. Your plans for new equipment include this individual because you’re planning for how cost will be calculated on new presses and new finishing equipment. Your management team and accounting department are constantly asking for additional custom reports, which now can be done internally because your Print MIS Administrator has taught them how to use the report writer tool.

You have plans for upgrades.

Your team gets briefed on upcoming releases and collaborates on which ones will be implemented in your workflow. All of this is a lot of heavy lifting which cannot be left to chance.

You have to give ownership. Of course, this person typically has other job duties, but I cannot stress enough how much return on investment you can get if you pick the right person and you give them enough time to thrive.

The ROI on your Print MIS is a grind. I’ve seen systems installed for 10 years and still haven’t climbed out of that ROI hole because the system wasn’t implemented properly. The business is basically working around the system, and there is nobody doing the care and feeding.

If you can’t name an individual who is responsible for administering your Print MIS, change that right away.

Please don’t put a group of people on it. Apple had a term that many attribute to their phenomenal success: Directly Responsible Individual (DRI).

I love this acronym because of the combination of three powerful words.

“Directly” is very clear. “Responsible” is more than who is going to do something. This is who is responsible for delivering the result. Finally, “Individual” has to be one person so there is no wiggle room. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21063050 ■ May 2019 WhatTheyThink - Printing News

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CONSULTANTS

Do You Practice This Art of Top Print Executives?

There is a trait that top executives of growing print companies share. It’s the art of being still and listening. Here are three examples of how top print executives do this in their own way... and why.

Article by Heidi Tolliver-Walker

I

recently interviewed the president of a fast-growing chain of copy shops, and he said something interesting. As his company has gone increasingly hightech, he attributes his company’s growth to something surprisingly low-tech—basic customer service.

He didn’t mean providing a good quality product, on time, at the best price. That’s a given. He meant how customer service used to be practiced in the days before technology took over. He meant, as president of the company, returning calls in person.

Picking up the phone and calling clients for no purpose other than to ask how they’re doing. He meant investing in customer projects himself.

More than half his time, this executive said, is spent working directly with customers.

Heidi Tolliver-Walker Heidi Tolliver-Walker has been a commercial and digital printing industry analyst, feature writer, and author for more than 20 years. Her industry commentary can be found in national printing publications, blogs, and marketing publications.

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“We started in 2000, before the Twin Towers came down. Over half of the businesses that were open then aren’t in business anymore.

But we listen—at least, I think we do; I spend more than half my time directly talking to customers or working on projects related to customers—and our business has doubled in size since then.”

He learned the skill of listening from Kinko’s, he said, back when he was in college. “Back then, nobody was more service-oriented than they were,” he recalls. “The culture changed after the investors left. Kinko’s abandoned that culture, but I kept it.”

As a company owner or top executive, can you imagine spending more than half of your time talking to or working with customers? That’s a lot. But his company’s growth shows the value of doing it. It makes me wonder: have the rest of us become so busy that we have forgotten how to sit still and listen? What would happen if we did? What might we learn? What might we discover that benefits our business in ways that we wouldn’t have discovered if we hadn’t?

I also recently spoke to another top executive who goes into the office on Saturdays and just sits at his

desk, quietly, with an empty Word document open on his laptop or a yellow scratch pad on his desk. He just sits there, with no distractions, and brainstorms. It is from these times that most of his most profitable business ventures are birthed. His company, too, is growing rapidly while his competitors are stagnant or going out of business.

There is another executive I spoke to recently, a female CEO, who takes the time to sit with her employees in monthly mentoring sessions. They learn from her, but just as importantly, she learns from them. Notably, she doesn’t delegate this opportunity to someone else.

She does it herself. By doing so, she learns from her employees’ own mouths what motivates and inspires them, and ultimately, something that is critical to the survival of her printing business (and any printing business these days), including how to make her workplace one that younger people want to work in.

When was the last time you took time out of your schedule just to sit quietly and think, or to listen intently and patiently to those around you?

What did you learn? Find article here PrintingNews.com/21063046 ■

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NEW PRODUCTS ▲ Solimar Systems Showcased Technology Advances at National Postal Forum 2019 Solimar Systems, Inc., a leading provider of customer communications delivery solutions, exhibited new technologyduring the National Postal Forum, May 5 - 8, 2019 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Solimar’s provided live technology demonstrations of the Chemistry platform showing how it enables print service providers and in-plants to take advantage of USPS postal savings programs.

“The National Postal Forum is a special event that highlights the continuing relevance of printed communication, and presents the latest personalized messaging technologies available to efficiently enhance documents for highvolume transactional and other variable-data printing workflows,” said Mary Ann Rowan, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Solimar Systems. “At this premier mailing and shipping conference, attendees can learn how Solimar’s Chemistry platform can be a vital workflow tool for operational efficiency, productivity, and success.”

www.printingnews.com/21063305

Xeikon introduces Panther DuraCure – A Unique Curing Technology Xeikon has applied to patent its Panther DuraCure UV curing technology for use with Xeikon PantherCure UV inks.

This unique curing technology takes the Xeikon Panther UV-inkjet series of digital presses to new levels of performance. The Panther DuraCure curing technology is a unique technique achieving optimal gloss effects in all colours, as well as ultimate durability for multiple applications across multiple sectors. Key benefits are consistent curing performance, long-term durability, and the lowest possible energy consumption. Working with the Panther UV-Inkjet series of digital presses, the Panther DuraCure curing process operates in a number of ways. UV ‘pinning’ of white keeps the ink from spreading and bleeding into the CMYK inks. This ensures that the quality of the CMYK image is kept at the highest level. UV ‘pinning’ after black following CMYK transfer means DuraCure ‘freezes’ all colours across the image and maintains a uniform optimal colour brilliance and gloss.

www.printingnews.com/21062865 XANTE’ Releases New IQUEUE 13 Workflow Software Xante’ marked a milestone accomplishment for the company with the announcement of a major release of iQueue, its flagship Adobe PostScript PDF workflow software. iQueue 13 opens an entirely new aspect of the commercial printing industry for Xante’ and its customers. With Xante’s iQueue 13 workflow software, commercial print providers may now import their clients’ mailing list, scrub, sort, and update it for change-ofaddress within seconds. The addresses process quickly through iQueue’s powerful cloud servers containing the USPS CASS and NCOALink databases. Additionally, the iQueue software will generate and print the USPS Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMb) on every piece for maximum discounts and assurance of accurate delivery. All required USPS documentation for the mailing is instantly created and filled in with the mail preparer’s information and pertinent data about the mailing.

www.printingnews.com/21063170

New AXYZ Software Simplifies Panel Tracking Process AXYZ CNC Routers unveiled a new panel tracking system as part of their newly designed PANELBuilder CNC Router solution. The PANELTracker Management System is an intuitive new interface that eliminates the need to manually affix labels on panels or mark them with sharpies. As part of a new software bundle, the PANELTracker is a more cost friendly solution than 3rd party inventory software. Quick and easy to use, it keeps track of all panels as they move from stage of production to another. It’s the only project management tool panel fabricators need to increase production efficiency, while saving time and money. The PANELTracker works in conjunction with the PANELBuilder system, as part of an all-in-one solution. It is designed for two types of users - a Project Manager and General/Operator – throughout 4 key stages of production. At any point in the process, a damaged or defective panel can be scanned and identified. An email is then sent to the Project Manager with information and the data file needed so that the panel can be easily reproduced. The PANELTracker simplifies the panel tracking process for all PANELBuilder customers, exclusive to AXYZ.

www.printingnews.com/21063296

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NEW PRODUCTS Rollem Announces Release of the New Receding Stacker to Speed up Delivery and Collection of Card Products

▲ Summa Releases GoProduce Software for Workflow Optimization on the F Series Summa has developed a new in-house software platform to support its product range: GoSuite. The first software module within this GoSuite platform is called GoProduce.

The software is bound to facilitate the operator’s work on the F Series flatbed and secure optimum rentability at the customer, partner, and installer production sites. The GoProduce software is ready for immediate release and implementation worldwide. Flatbed cutters are the customer’s hardware of choice when they need to get to market fast. With this speed everincreasing, the software needs to be up to par to make sure the hardware can keep a more than steady pace at the smallest error margin. With the F Series as the fastest growing series in the Summa range, Summa selected this series as the first one to be accompanied with software to match. Instead of optimizing or tailoring existing solutions, Summa opted to develop the new software platform entirely in-house. The software was designed to be plug and play specifically, without any need for hardware installation. Users simply install the drivers, activate their subscription online and start operating. GoProduce for the F Series is intended to make life easier on the operator, by facilitating workflows via action sets.

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As a leader in sheet-fed converting solutions, Rollem’s Jetstream is the most requested solution for high volume production level slitting applications. With speeds exceeding 4,000 sheets per hour and sheet layouts containing anywhere from 4-10 up images, the collection process has been improved with the release of the Receding Stacker. Designed with removable bin cartridges, the operator can easily remove the full cartridge and replace it with an empty one for nearly uninterrupted delivery streamlining production. Now business cards, postcards, photo cards are delivered with speed and accuracy ready for boxing or fulfillment. Sequential orders are maintained in the tall bins up to 10-12” tall. The stacker can be ordered to fit common press sheet sizes. To request more information, contact Rollem International at (800) 272-4381 ext. 17.

www.printingnews.com/21060152 Square 9 Introduces GlobalSearch C2 Business Essentials Square 9 Softworks, Inc. announced a new strategy for solutions delivery with the release of GlobalSearch C2 for Business Essentials. Built on the GlobalSearch cloud platform, Business Essentials is a secure enterprise content management solution that features tools for optimizing any digital transformation strategy. Designed to deliver immediate results, GlobalSearch C2 for Business Essentials provides pre-designed vertically driven solutions that includes all the tools to successfully manage business content.

Square 9 designed Business Essentials to compliment the way modern solution providers operate. Business Essentials enables dealers to drive solution sales with ease by eliminating long sales cycles and simplifying the delivery process without sacrificing functionality or flexibility.

www.printingnews.com/21060812 Mohawk Fine Papers Partners with Kernow Coatings Limited on Cobalt Coating Technology Mohawk Fine Papers, Inc., announced a strategic partnership with Kernow Coatings Limited, the global leader in optimized high-performance coatings for print, security, engineering and industrial substrates. Kernow’s proprietary Cobalt Coating Technology is now available exclusively in North America from Mohawk.

Cobalt Coating Technology for HP Indigo represents a new benchmark for HP Indigo synthetics print performance. Cobalt offers the next generation of durability and image quality specifically optimized for HP Indigo presses. Built on a well-established knowledge of digital print technology and expertly engineered by Kernow Coatings Limited, NEW Mohawk Synthetics with Cobalt™ deliver ultimate ink adhesion, built-in static control, and best-in-class runnability. With a wide range of calipers in white, colored and metallic films offered, the new Mohawk Synthetics with Cobalt portfolio enables new durable print applications using four color, white or clear ink.

www.printingnews.com/21061065

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Printbox Announces the Editor For Professional Photographers Software developer, Printbox, announced a brand-new editor of its software to sell personalized photo products. The new editor includes five innovations: Autocreation: Printbox created a deterministic algorithm that analyzes images based on selected parameters, such as the date of creation of the image, the place of creation, and what is the content of the image.

Fast drag & drop creation mode: this mode is a complete novelty in the system. The main purpose is to easily create a project that will be very neat and accurate, using ready layouts. Photos tab (photo list): Printbox launched in the new editor PRO a separate tab for managing the library of photos, which is also a complete innovation in the Printbox system. Layouts per page and spread: Layout is a structured arrangement of visual elements such as photo slots, texts and clipart within a page or a spread. We can call it a design as well, presented by a designer or a shop administrator to their client. Dark interface: The design was created based on the needs of professional users. Printbox has built a powerful tool for work, which is recommended especially to companies that cater to professional photographers. For more information on Printbox visit https://getprintbox.com/.

www.printingnews.com/21061192

▲ HP Expands PrintOS Marketplace HP Inc. announced the expansion of HP PrintOS Marketplace, opening an ideas store to inspire HP print service providers (PSPs) to collaborate, innovate and grow, while implementing Industry 4.0 for automated printing of thousands of jobs a day. New apps in the marketplace from HP and solution partners can also help HP print service providers increase productivity, streamline workflow and develop new digital print applications. PrintOS gives PSPs control over print operations virtually anywhere at any time, simplifies and automates print production processes, and provides a scalable architecture of production-ready tools to grow digital business.

An additional PrintOS Marketplace store for Applications features monthly, subscription-based apps from HP and solutions partners. The App store is expanding with new offerings from HP and solutions partners, including: Locr, MindFire, OneFlow, HYBRID Software, PrintOS Jobs API, PrintOS Composer, PrintOS OEE, PrintOS Color and Beat PrintOS Site Flow. PrintOS Marketplace is also now launching a new Licenses Store for easy self-service download and licensing of off-the-shelf software solutions from HP solutions partners integrated with PrintOS.

www.printingnews.com/21061240

▲ International Standard Provides a New Color Management System The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has announced the completion of the development of ISO 20677, Image technology colour management — Extensions to architecture, profile format, and data structure. The ISO Technical Committee 130, Joint Working Group 7 (TC130/JWG7) that developed this international standard works closely with the International Color Consortium (ICC) on standards focused on color management. While the current architecture has worked well and meets most user requirements, new potential applications are emerging, and tomorrow’s color communication requires a more flexible and extensible system. ISO 20677 addresses these new requirements. This international standard describes an expanded profile specification, with profile connections that permit greater flexibility and functionality. Central to the new architecture is a move from a fixed profile connection space based on D50 colorimetry, towards a much more flexible PCS definition, including support for any illuminant, any colorimetric observer and any number of PCS channels – enabling both spectral and multiplex PCS connections. Additionally, minimum structural and operational requirements for writing and reading ICC profiles are defined. Implementors can eliminate the need for large libraries of profiles and the problem of profile selection by providing a single profile for a range of conditions, which is configured at run-time. ISO 20677 is available for purchase from APTech and ISO member national organizations.

www.printingnews.com/21061563

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WATCH LIST

A Day in the Life: Creative Services Intern From sketch to print, our Creative Services Interns are given the opportunity to learn how to design pieces for all of our equipment.

Find video here: printingnews.com/21059792

Nozomi C18000 Printing Modes Capabilities The EFI Nozomi C18000 single-pass industrial Inkjet printer for corrugated can be configured with a range of print modes.

Find video here: printingnews.com/21061960

Inkjet Closes the Gap with Offset Martin Bailey, CTO of Global Graphics Software, discusses how far inkjet has come in catching up with offset production quality Find video here: printingnews.com/2106198

Cartoons Come to 3D-Printed Life at The Angoulême International Comics Festival You’ll love seeing how they were created by Metropole on their Massivit 1800 3D printer.

Find video here: printingnews.com/21061998

Sarah Barr Offers Advice to New Print Owners Sarah Barr, Owner of Konhaus Print and Marketing, talks with Richard Romano about navigating the world of print as a new owner.

Find video here: printingnews.com/21061010

Gaby Mullinax: From Film to FASTSIGNS After nearly 20 years running a retail photo boutique, Gaby Mullinax saw new opportunities in signage and purchased a FASTSIGNS franchise.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/21061012

3M Building 220 Wrap - Installer’s Story Video An Installer’s perspective on wrapping the 3M corporate 220 building with 3M graphics films Find video here: printingnews.com/21061693

Five Customers, One Amazing Wall Wallcovering Challenge Showcased the capabilities of the Océ Colorado 1640, when digitally printing wallcoverings.

Find video here: printingnews.com/21061716

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Die-cut packaging inserts at speed up to 80,000 pieces per hour!

Rollem’s Insignia6 single magnetic die cutter running sheets @ 70,000 - 80,000 pieces per hour.

Find video here: printingnews.com/21062310

Improving Competitiveness by Being Part of FASTSIGNS Rod Thompson, had a long background in digital printing, and felt that signage was the next step.

Find video here: www.printingnews.com/2106273

Testing an Interior Wall for Media Compatibility The first step to qualifying a wall wrapping media is to analyze and properly test the surface for media compatibility.

Find video here: printingnews.com/21062739

How packaging supports farmers in achieving better prices for hard work?

Overcoming challenges to market fresh food products.

Find video here: printingnews.com/21062956

Unboxing Outdoor Voices Outdoor Voices is a DTC activewear brand to help you get moving and have fun #DoingThings. Each component of their packaging is essential.

Find video here: printingnews.com/21062957

NPOA Grows with its Members Scott Cappel, President of Sorrento Mesa Printing and one of the founders of NPOA, talks about the evolution of the association and his company.

Find video here: printingnews.com/21063160

Smooth Operators Frank opines about printing press operators. The need for operators and schools don’t graduate operators of specific machines.

Find video here: printingnews.com/21063163

Making an Office Paper Dragon – Viking Our latest project to inspire staff was our biggest yet – the creation of a whopping 13-metre-long dragon made entirely of paper!

Find video here: printingnews.com/21063166

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

2019 Sign and Display Graphics Franchise Review Article by Cary Sherburne

W

hile the commercial printing segment in the U.S. continues to struggle, still losing an average of 800 establishments annually, the sign and display graphics business is a growth segment. In fact, many commercial printers and most of the print franchise organizations are looking to signs and display graphics to drive revenue growth. Meanwhile, the four franchisors operating in the signs and display graphics industry (Alliance Franchise Brands, FASTSIGNS, Signarama and SpeedPro), along with the non-franchise Sign Biz network, are all reporting growth and do not seem at all daunted by competition from the printing segment.

“That doesn’t bother us,” said AJ Titus, president of Signarama. “I don’t think we are at a disadvantage at all.

Someone who buys a large format printer and says, ‘I am a sign company now,’ is very mistaken. We’ve invested in a great deal of infrastructure and support for our franchisees, are a mature brand, and even a new center would be years ahead of an inexperienced start-up.”

We’ll take a look at the sign and display graphics industry as a whole and recap our conversations with franchisors in terms of their current infrastructure, strategies for the future and their year-over-year performance. Because Sign Biz has 224 affiliated centers, we are including them in this review as well, even though they are not a franchise organization.

Industry Overview The U.S. Census Bureau actually has two different classifications for signs and display graphics, and businesses self-define in their reporting. Therefore, for purposes of this article, we have considered both: ■■ NAICS 541850 Display/Outdoor Advertising: This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in creating and designing public display advertising campaign materials, such as printed, painted or

Cary Sherburne Cary Sherburne is a well-known author, journalist and marketing consultant whose practice is focused on marketing communications strategies for the printing and publishing industries.

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electronic displays This also includes placing such displays on indoor or outdoor billboards and panels, or on or within transit vehicles or facilities, shopping malls, retail (in-store) displays and other display structures or sites.

■■ NAICS 339950 Sign Manufacturing: This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing signs and related displays of all materials (except printing paper and paperboard signs, notices and displays).

In 2016, the last year for which census data is available, the combined classifications had a total of 95,954 employees across 8,206 establishments. The number of establishments was up from 2015, which had a total of 8,028 establishments. That’s a 2% year-over-year increase in the number of establishments. However, the number of employees was down slightly from 98,732 in 2015 to the 2016 number of employees at 95,954.

Overall, sign manufacturers reported shipments of more than $12 billion in 2016, up from $11 billion in 2015, an increase of 5.7%, a healthy growth rate far exceeding GDP, which has been in the 2% range.

For comparison purposes, we also looked at the number of establishments with less than 20 employees, since most franchise operations fall into that category. The number of those establishments was up 3% year over year, with 6,946 in 2015 compared to 7,121 in 2016. Establishments with less than 10 employees also saw a 3% year-over-year growth in the number of establishments from 2015 to 2016. Due to the way the government collects data, total shipments by establishment size was not available.

These data reflect a shift to smaller businesses in the sign and display graphics businesses, most likely attributable both to growth in demand for their products and more affordable equipment enabling smaller entrepreneurs to enter the business. Industry association SGIA found similar results in its 2018 benchmarking study.

“Since SGIA’s 2017 report, the median number of employees [per display graphics business] stayed the same (N=12), but median sales have decreased slightly to $1,850,000. This could be because the number of smaller companies (less than five employees and revenues of less than $250,000) has increased.”

In addition, the SGIA benchmark report found that

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE median sales growth for 2018 was 8.5% for the display graphics industry at large, with more than 70% of respondents reporting positive sales growth, denoting strength in the overall industry. More than half of respondents plan to hire sales people, and 44.4% indicated a desire to hire graphic designers.

The ability to enter this lucrative business more easily has benefited the franchise networks, who have also demonstrated growth – both in establishments and shipments.

It is also important to note that as the commercial printing industry continues to struggle, and operators seek new revenue streams, signage is an attractive option.

In our “Annual Print Franchise Review,” published in the April edition, we learned that print franchises are

aggressively pursuing signs and display graphics as revenue streams for their franchise centers as well as new customer services. For example, Franchise Services, the franchisor for Sir Speedy, PIP and others, reports that the network’s signs business grew at 25% in 2018.

“Our objective is to get to signs being 25% of total revenue in the shorter term, with a goal of 50% longer term,” President and Chief Operations Officer Richard Lowe said. “It represents about 16% of our business today.

Without the growth we are experiencing in signs, our business would be flat.”

Alliance Franchise Network has both signs and display graphics and print franchises. The company is aggressively working to have dual branded print and sign centers.

Signs are about 10% of AlphaGraphics’ business today

These five businesses, then, represented a total of 2,165 cente s, almost one-third of the <10 employee businesses in the industry at large. And they generated a total of $1.223 billion in systemwide sales in 2018, up from$1.159 billion in 2017.

Network

Systemwide Sales 2017

Systemwide Sales 2018

Percent increase/decrease

Alliance Franchise Networks LLC

$167 million

$168.1 million

0.6%*

FASTSIGNS

$479 million

$504 million

5.2%

Signarama

$275 million

$300 million

10%

SpeedPro Imaging

$62 million

$69 million

11.3%

Sign Biz

$176 million

$182 million

3.4%

Total

$1,159 million

$1,223 million

5.5%

This smaller-than-usual year-over-year increase at Alliance Franchise Networks is attributable to 7 of the 311 centers experiencing significantly lower revenues due to “unusual circu stances.” Taking those 7 out of the mix, the network grew at 4.5% in 2018 as compared to 2017.

Network

Highest Revenue Center

Average Sales per Center

Average Investment Required

Alliance Franchise Networks LLC

$2,350,000

$703,000*

$193,000 to

FASTSIGNS

$6,900,000

$800,000

$225,000

Signarama

$6,298,671

$579,695**

$55,000 with financin

SpeedPro Imaging

$3,000,000

$594,436***

$256,900 to $298,000

Sign Biz

$6,500,000

$810,345

$195,000

*Image360 **Centers with an outside sales rep for one or more year averaged $1,136,555 ***For centers that have been open 2 years or more Most also suggest or require working capital of in the range of $45,000 to $50,000.

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE but growing in the 25% to 30% range. The company expects signs to soon run a close second to digital printing in terms of revenue share. The company is in the process of doing a complete makeover for a Chicago business as a promotion of its signage capabilities.

Both Minuteman and Fortusis offer wide format printing as well.

So, while the sign and display graphics franchises are doing well, they can expect increasing competition from their print franchise brethren (and others, of course) moving forward.

As a final note on the industry at large, not only are there two NAICS classifications the government uses to describe the industry, but there are also two distinct segments within those classifications. We are using the terminology signs and display graphics, instead of just signs as we have in the past, due to the fact that there are two very influential industry associations who differentiate themselves by the areas they cover.

■■ The International Sign Association (https://www.signs. org/) focuses on signs, as distinguished from display graphics. This includes electronic, architectural, ADAcompliant, Braille, wayfinding and more.

■■ SGIA (www.sgia.org), on the other hand, focuses on display graphics of all types.

Most sign companies do both, but each of the associations provides relevant information and support to its members in its specific discipline, including technologies, regulatory concerns and more.

2018 Sign and Display Graphics Franchise Networks The sign and display graphics franchise networks we reviewed for include: ■■ Alliance Franchise Networks (Signs By Tomorrow, Signs Now, Image360), with 311 centers total; ■■ FASTSIGNS, with 700 centers; ■■ Signarama, with 750 centers; and ■■ SpeedPro Imaging, with 180 centers We also separately profile Sign Biz, which is NOT a franchise network, but rather, a network of member companies connected by an evergreen contract. Sign Biz has a total of 224 centers and has been in business for 30 years. Its relevance to this story has to do with the centralized resources it provides to its members, resources an unaffiliated sign shop typically does not have access to.

Key Challenges and Opportunities In our annual survey, we asked the franchisors what their franchisees’ biggest challenges would be in the coming year. All of the franchise networks identified 34

finding qualified sales people as a challenge, and 80% reported finding qualified production people as a challenge as well. Other challenges, each identified by 40% of respondents, included: ■■ Competition from other print providers ■■ Increasing employee benefit costs ■■ Pricing ■■ Owner/management retirement The SGIA 2018 benchmark report also found that downward pressure on prices is still one of the main obstacles to growth for the display graphics industry at large.

In terms of opportunities, there was less consensus, but 60% identified adding textile/fabric printing capabilities as a key opportunity, with 40% citing improving economic conditions. Forty percent also identified hiring new salespeople as an opportunity. According to the SGIA 2018 Benchmark report, for the industry as a whole, adding new product lines was cited as an important current strategy by 47.8% of respondents.

Overall, 75% of system revenues for sign and display graphics franchises were generated by wide format and signage, with 12% of revenues coming from brokered or other services. In terms of applications, there was little interest in adding commercial printing, with respondents indicating they would outsource the work if needed. Digital ceramic printing and digital textile printing for applications other than signage were areas of interest for the future for most respondents. Both can actually be accomplished using heat transfer dye sublimation. We will be interested to see how much adoption of these applications occurs during 2019. Applications most commonly added in the past 18 to 24 months included fleet and building wraps, hard signage and sign construction and digital art printing.

Franchise Networks at a Glance We spoke with leaders of each of the four sign and display graphics franchise networks to understand more details about their operations, as well as with nonfranchise organization Sign Biz. The results of those conversations are presented here in alphabetical order.

Alliance Franchise Networks LLC Alliance Franchise Networks has both print and sign franchises. In its sign business, there are three brands: Signs Now, which has about 90 centers; Signs By Tomorrow, which also has about 90 centers; and its growth brand, Image360, which has 131 centers. Both Signs Now and Signs By Tomorrow were retail-oriented when they started and still do retail business today, while Image 360 centers are B2B focused on developing higher-end client relationships, interior design, experiential graphics,

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE purchase an established business with an existing customer base, cashflow and staff. Owners of independent print or sign shops looking to retire or sell their businesses can work with one of wayfinding and some of the more upscale image solutions clients are seeking today. Any new centers will be branded Image360.

In 2018, Image360 average sales per shop of $703,000. Systemwide sales for all three brands was $168.1 million, with Image360 delivering $80.2 million of that. The highest revenue shop, an Image360 location, generated $2.35 million in sales.

The average investment to open a new Image360 center in 2018 ranged from $193,000 to $365,000, depending on market requirements and franchisee choices.

Unique in having both sign and print franchises, Alliance Franchise

Unique in having both sign and print franchises, Alliance Franchise Networks is also leveraging the synergy between the two.

Networks is also leveraging the synergy between the two. As we reported in our April â&#x20AC;&#x153;Print Franchise Reviewâ&#x20AC;? article, there are already about 30 Allegra centers that are dual branded as Allegra and Image360, with a goal to have 80 dual-branded centers in the next five years.

The print and sign businesses also share the Matchmaker program, which allows entrepreneurs to For more information, visit PrintingNews.com/10054488

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE Alliance Franchise Networks’ merger and acquisition managers to find qualified buyers or match with existing franchise members looking to expand in other markets. A re-branding to Allegra Marketing Print Mail, Image 360 or a dual branded center allows the new owner to capitalize on the power of the network and hit the ground running.

The Advantage™ Program is designed for independently branded sign shops who want to grow the value of their company by gaining access to a host of franchise network resources plus develop a strategy for when they are ready to sell.

The company has a fairly aggressive greenfield program for new centers as well. A new Image360 center will typically have a very professional-looking lobby and conference room with a consultative and creative feel.

Behind the wall, production consists of printers (typically 60” HP Latex), laminators, cutters (Graphtec or Summa) and production tables. Some will start with a flatbed as well, or upgrade to one later as the business grows. Some centers are also adding soft signage, according to Ray Palmer, President of the Sign & Graphics Division.

“Costly equipment is still a barrier to entry to get the true pop that will drive customer acceptance in a large way,” he said. “We just installed equipment in our corporate center that is a mix of direct to fabric and dye sub. This center primarily focuses on experiential graphic design for hospitals and offices, and it is one of the largest centers in the system.”

Palmer pointed out that where centers have gotten into apparel, it is more likely to be some screen print and direct-to-fabric print. However, the preferred focus for the future would be soft signage for trade shows, etc.

“Our focus is on breaking away from commodity products to those that command respectable margins for our franchisees,” Palmer said.

The organization is also keeping an eye on dynamic digital signage and 3D printing.

“We have done a number of dynamic digital signage projects,” Palmer said, “but we need to find a way to make them more margin-driven for our franchisees.”

In terms of software infrastructure, Corebridge is the MIS of choice and includes built-in e-commerce and workflows. The sign group also takes advantage of Alliance Franchise Networks’ Workstream™ technology package, a corporate effort that also includes the print division. Over the past six years, the company has made extensive investments in services and infrastructure to support its franchisees, including WorkStream. Technology is a centerpiece of the company’s long-term vision for growth. The integrated system is designed to reduce the time associated with estimating, order entry and 36

production activities through automation, shifting the focus to client services. Strategic partnerships with a variety of industry suppliers have helped to develop a mostly cloud-based, fully integrated solution that includes e-commerce, MIS, marketing technology and more.

Alliance Franchise Networks’ corporate Marketing Resource Center includes graphic designers, copywriters and web developers, committed to helping the network deliver marketing services, and also offers sales training and coaching sessions.

FASTSIGNS International, Inc. FASTSIGNS CEO Catherine Monson reports that 2018 was another record year for the network, as were the five previous years. FASTSIGNS had more than 700 centers at the end of 2018 with over 620 locations in the U.S. and continues to aggressively open new centers. FASTSIGNS is the largest sign and graphics network in North America.

Systemwide sales exceeded $504 million, with the highest volume location delivering $6.9 million in sales.

“Our brand has the highest average sales volume in the sign space, the highest profitability, and we are the only one in the category that includes the actual financial results of our franchisees in our Franchise Disclosure Document,” she said. “In addition, FASTSIGNS was ranked #1 in the sign and graphics space for three years in a row

by Entrepreneur Magazine.”

When she joined FASTSIGNS in 2009, she set several key goals for the system after visiting over half of the FASTSIGNS franchisees over the first half of 2009, as developed the company’s four key strategic objectives: 1. Increase franchisee profitability by 50%. FASTSIGNS exceeded that goal of increasing franchisee profitability by 50% in 2017 and continues to make that a primary focus. FASTSIGNS’ updated key strategic objective is to further increase franchisee profitability by 25%.

2. Increase average sales volume to over $1 million. The average is at about $820,000 now, but the system has added 200 new locations at the same time, so that average includes young centers still ramping. For those centers that existed in 2009, Monson reports that the average exceeds $1 million.

3. Further increase the value of the FASTSIGNS brand.

Monson reports that both aided and unaided

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE brand awareness and the actual multiple of profit franchisees receive when they sell their businesses demonstrates that the value of the FASTSIGNS brand has increased year over year.

4. Further increase already high franchisee satisfaction.

According to Monson, the network continues to receive awards from publications and third-party sources such as Franchise Business Review, the Canadian Franchise Association and the Franchise Research Institute for the highest franchisee satisfaction.

“We have happy franchisees whose sales and profits are growing,” she said. “Our goal is to add value and make the brand even more successful. The only way for a franchisor to be successful is if its franchisees are successful.”

Monson boasts a 100% renewal rate among franchisees in 2018 and a 98% renewal rate since the company’s inception.

In seeking new franchise centers, FASTSIGNS offers a greenfield startup, conversion of an independent sign business and a co-branding of someone in print or related

fields, such as trophies, pack-and-ship, a camera store, etc.

“Because the brand is so well-known,” Monson said, “most of our leads come from our website. But we also attend franchise shows, trade shows and advertise in trade publications such as WhatTheyThink and Printing News.

We also do some pay-per-click advertising and direct mail.”

“Because the brand is so well-known, most of our leads come from our website.”

In terms of resales, Monson reports that the typical number per year is 20 to 25 centers.

At FASTSIGNS, a greenfield center configuration is driven by the network’s single most important factor: that the franchisee is able to quickly reach profitability.

For more information, visit PrintingNews.com/12417536

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE A typical greenfield center will consist of 1,300 to 1,500 square feet and a startup package that enables them to produce 80% to 85% of the typical work a center would need to produce. They also try to get first right of refusal on adjoining spaces to allow for growth in the same location. A new center would open with a roll-to-roll printer, an application table, a wall cutter, laminator, plotter and some computers.

“We teach franchisees how to utilize the opening equipment package to profitably sell and efficiently produce a wide variety of products,” Monson said. “There is no reason to burden a new franchisee with a high break-even with a flatbed, flatbed cutter and 3,000 square feet of space. As they start making a profit and grow the business, when it comes time to add new equipment or space, we advise franchisees to do it in a way that does not break the bank and meets the needs of the business and the local market.”

The network also has a stable of outsource providers to help franchisees meet customer needs even when they don’t have those production services in house. FASTSIGNS reviews its technology recommendations each year and adjusts them based on current market state after testing in the corporate center.

“We just received the new HP Latex R1000 flatbed,” Monson said, “and put it through its paces, as an example.

When it is time for a center to buy a piece of equipment, they can consult with technical support to determine what the right solution is. And with over 700 locations, our franchisees receive significant price advantages and discounts.”

In addition to HP, FASTSIGNS supports printers from Epson, Roland, EFI and Mimaki, including heat transfer dye-sub for soft signage.

Signarama.

Signarama, part of the United Franchise Group, has a total of 750 shops in its network, with 450 of those located in North America. Its average sales per shop is $579,695, but Titus said that centers that have had an outside sales rep for one year or more average $1,136,655. Systemwide sales for 2018 were in excess of $300 million, with the highest revenue shop generating $6,298,671 in sales. Roy Titus, AJ’s grandfather, founded the Minuteman Press franchise; and more than 30 years ago, AJs father, Ray, founded Signarama. Now AJ has taken over running the 38

Signarama operation.

For 2019 and 2020, Signarama is focused on cultivating data and using its technology to the fullest.

“We are in the process of upgrading our website and moving to a new point of sale system where we can utilize real-time data to help franchisees market, strategize and sell more,” Titus said. “On top of that, we are looking to new products to sell, including digital signage, electronic message centers and more. We are always trying to be one step ahead in research and development as well.

We are intrigued by the possibilities of creating an app that will help us gain a better understanding of what are customers are looking for, what services they are using and how often, and also to help us better analyze trends in signage.

“We are intrigued by the possibilities of creating an app that will help us gain a better understanding of what our customers are looking for, what services they are using and how often, and also to help us better analyze trends in signage. For example, a significant amount of the revenue coming through our stores is from installation, which we recently learned from some business analytics we did. We didn’t know that before. With that information in hand, we can decide, do we need to do more training, develop specific marketing materials or advertise those capabilities more? We believe to the extent we can make better use of data, we can make better business decisions and better spur our growth.”

Titus said this will be a 2020 or 2021 initiative for the company.

“We are very focused on helping our franchisees grow their businesses wherever they are located. The more we help them grow their businesses, the more franchises we will sell and the bigger the brand will get. Typically, a new franchisee doesn’t have any industry experience, but has a background in management, sales or marketing.”

The company already has a significant presence in Asia

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE and continues to develop that market.

“Our footprint in Latin America is light,” he said, “and that’s a region we’d like to grow.”

That being said, new franchises are opening up in the U.S. at a double-digit rate as well.

Typical startup investment for a greenfield center is $200,000 but can be as low as $55,000 with financing.

A new location is typically 1,400 square feet with three employees. Typical equipment for a start-up would include a 60” HP Latex roll-to-roll printer, a Graphtec plotter, a laminator and a lamination table.

“Some of our more mature centers have added flatbeds,” Titus said, “but we typically would not start out a new center with that level of investment.”

The company has programs to encourage independent sign companies to convert to the Signarama brand, and Titus said the company is getting good traction there.

“We also have franchisees who are wanting to retire, and we help them find buyers for their centers. We are a mature and well-respected brand, and that attracts people who are looking for something new to do. We see about a 50/50 ratio between new stores and resale stores.”

Signarama also cobrands with some of the other brands in the United Franchise Group, such as Fully Promoted, a promotional products franchise operation.

Signarama provides its

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Sign Biz® Inc. As noted earlier, Sign Biz is not a franchise network but rather a network of members who are under contract to receive services from a centralized organization. Each Sign Biz Member maintains its own branding but can display the Sign Biz logo to promote its membership. Unlike a franchise operation, Sign Biz does not collect royalties. However, it does offer a number of fee-based services to its members.

Sign Biz also acts as a Value Added Reseller within the sign industry, earning margins on sales and negotiating special pricing for members.

“Since 1991, we have been driven by a requirement to be sustainable for our members,” President and CEO Teresa M. Young said. “We are happily forced to develop programs and services our Sign Biz Network Members want and need that they can purchase. This includes things like our expert tech support program at about $2.50/day with Microsoft certified IT professionals, color calibration, remote support by dialing in on someone’s computer screen, marketing campaign materials, postcards, etc. For $89 per month, they can opt into a full email campaign with as large a list as they wish to distribute for our ‘Sign Hugger’ newsletter branded for them, which includes relevant business-oriented articles. It keeps them top of mind with monthly communications to customers and prospects.”

The organization currently has 224 affiliated centers. New centers are eithe greenfield startups or conversions of existing sign businesses. There is an approximate 90-day startup period for a new center at a complete package cost for the new owner of about $153,000.

“We also like them to have $45,000 to $50,000 in working capital,” Young said. “After that, there is no monthly fee other than the services they choose to subscribe to.”

A typical start-up package would consist of a 64” printer/cutter plus a separate 48” cutter, a 64” laminator and a 43” commercial dynamic digital display with a media player and the LobbyPOP® software including a full infomercial developed by Sign Biz. Sign Biz charges a small deposit fee for an existing sign business to gain Sign Biz member rights, and the balance of payment of plus $1,000 per month for 16 months with no interest.

“We create a slipstream in their business to bring in necessary systems, help with sales training and sales compensation programs, etc.,” Young said. “This helps them grow their businesses. A recent conversion in Kentucky for example, went from revenues of $280,000 to $360,000 in the first year, a hieving its stretch goal.”

Like other networks, Sign Biz members depend on each other for outsourcing of work. When someone needs help, any member can send an email to all members via a private email platform. An example would be a Connecticut firm asking for help from a California firm to install signage in that state, a common occurrence in the network.

While not all centers offer all services, across the network Sign Biz members offer dynamic digital signage, digital textile printing, electric signs, soft and hard signage and signage construction, fleet and building graphics/wraps, digital art printing and more. When a customer needs commercial printing or digital ceramic printing, that work is outsourced to Sign Biz partners.

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE franchisees with a wide range of support, from training in house to in the field, digital hosting and web services, marketing material development and training, POS/ CRM training, as well as business management support.

Signarama does not restrict its centers with respect to technology but does have favorable buying agreements with key companies such as Grimco, HP, Avery and more.

The network uses the Corebridge system for POS. Soft signage is another area of potential growth, representing 10% to 15% of the network’s business today.

“It’s easy for franchisees to do,” Titus said. “Most do it in house although some sub it out. Although we don’t think it will dominate, it is a product that people are looking for, especially for trade shows to replace more conventional signage.”

Competition from print franchises and others who have set their sights on the sign business as a growth opportunity, doesn’t bother Titus.

“I don’t think we are at a disadvantage at all. Someone who buys a large format printer and says, ‘I am a sign company now,’ is very mistaken. We’ve invested in a great deal of infrastructure and support for our franchisees, are a mature brand, and even a new center would be years ahead of an inexperienced start-up.

“We are in a really exciting time at Signarama. We are updating a lot of our infrastructure digitally to make sure we have the best analytics in the industry and to make sure we are on top of industry trends and the health of our franchisees. We want to continue to be the leader into the 2020s, and we are looking to take the next steps in innovation.”

SpeedPro Imaging SpeedPro Imaging is primarily a B2B business that identifies among its customers printers, corporations, government agencies and schools, as well as print brokers, event planners and ad agencies, all of whom have a need for signs and display graphics. SpeedPro is actually comprised of two sister companies; the U.S. operation, headquartered in Denver, operates more than 130 studios, while its Canadian sister operation, founded in 2004, has about 50 studios.

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Larry Oberly, the organization’s new President & CEO as of November 2017, brings 27 years of franchise experience from the food service, real estate and large-format printing industries.

The company added a conversion option for existing independent wide-format printers whose businesses are not flourishing to the levels they would wish, or commercial printers wishing to engage in the wide-format graphics business.

SpeedPro’s growth model has been new studio startups.

The company seeks independent professionals who wanted to run their own print and graphics franchise, perhaps leaving corporate America by choice or involuntarily, and have an interest in operating a franchise.

In the second quarter of 2019, the company added a conversion option for existing independent wide-format printers whose businesses are not flourishing to the levels they would wish, or commercial printers wishing to engage in the wide-format graphics business.

“We have a compelling conversion package with a low cost to get in and significant upside,” Oberly said.

A new studio would typically be equipped with the HP 560 Latex series roll-to-roll printer, a Summa plotter and a Kala laminator.

“Franchisees, of course, can add additional equipment if they wish, but we like them to keep their expense level down until the studio is established.”

Oberly cites five key values of franchising in the wideformat graphics business: 1. First is the power of the network. “You have over 130 different owners in the U.S. who can help you with best practices and off whom you can bounce ideas.

The cooperative and sharing nature of the network is one of the highest-ranked attributes.”

2. The incredible vendor relationships the network has are also critical to franchisee success.

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE 3. S peedPro also offers training and support. “The know-how we deliver from our vast experience accelerates owners to a level of expertise that would not be available to an independent shop. We make this accessible in a combination of formats including online, in a classroom and virtually.”

4. Marketing resources are also key. “We provide the benefit of a collective marketing fund for our franchisees, which is focused on the website and digital lead generation as well as public relations and promotional activities that benefit our franchisees and strengthen the brand.”

5. “We use Listen360 customer engagement software, which has helped us demonstrate our exceptional service. Our Net Promotion Score is 96 (out of 100) and we have a Google ranking of 4.9 stars, which is off the charts.”

In addition to standard wide-format graphics products offered by the network, Oberly sees fabric as an important part of the business.

“Right now we have one studio that has invested in dye sublimation and others are outsourcing. We see this as a huge opportunity for the future, and we believe that through our new conversion program, there may be opportunity on the part of new owners to invest in dye sublimation.”

Many of the SpeedPro studios have flatbed printers and computer numerical control (CNC) routers. Flatbed printers are generally sourced from HP, Agfa and EFI, and the company is doing significant research and development into what’s next for the industry and for SpeedPro. SpeedPro uses Corebridge as its POS system, which is popular in the industry.

SpeedPro strategies are paying off. The organization grew by six studios year over year and network sales were up a strong 11.7%. But they are not stopping there.

“We have hired an innovation consultant,” Oberly said, “and we will be looking to think outside the box in terms of new business opportunities in the future. I believe we have a great plan for future growth, not only as we look to new verticals, but also as we extend our conversion program, which we are very excited about.”

The Future is Bright The sign and display graphics franchises are healthy and growing. Although their growth rate is slightly lower than the display graphics industry as a whole (according to SGIA reports), they are growing faster than GDP. All of the companies we spoke to are aggressively seeking – and acquiring – new franchisees, either independents who see the value of the infrastructure a franchise organization

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can provide them, or entrepreneurs looking for a new career opportunity. All have reported extremely high renewal rates as well, indicating that existing franchisees are generally happy with the services provided by the franchisor and the business opportunity ahead of them.

While the bulk of the work being produced by these franchisees is still the typical signs, banners, flags and wraps using a variety of materials, and much of it produced using roll-to-roll printers, there is growing demand within the networks for flatbeds. And there is interest in expanding beyond soft signage into other textile applications as well. We anticipate that this will be an area in which we will see significant year-over-year growth when we examine the market next year. This can include a variety of items of apparel, including embroidery but also heat transfer dye sublimation, direct-to-fabric and direct-to-garment printing for various applications.

This move is being driven both by market demand and improved and more cost-effective fabric printing technologies. Within North America, there is a significant drive to revitalize the textile industry using on-demand production methods and more customization and personalization in order to compete with Asian markets.

Sign and display graphics businesses are ideally positioned to take advantage of this demand, and as franchisors do the market research and testing on behalf of their franchisees, we are likely to see more centers buy in. Also consider that if they choose to adopt heat transfer dye sublimation, they can also use the same technology to produce in house a variety of promotional items that they may currently be outsourcing, or not taking advantage of at all.

For a future vision of where this market – particularly the display graphics segment – is headed, be sure to read our story about McGowans Print, an innovative Irish display graphics firm, in this month’s edition. Of particular note is McGowans’ adoption of 3D printing and thermoforming to create stunning three-dimensional signage. McGowans was also the first display graphics company to invest in the EFI Nozomi C18000, a high speed, high quality sheet-fed digital printer originally designed to serve the packaging market.

While it is not likely that many Nozomi printers will make their way into the franchise networks anytime soon, the McGowans story should be an inspiration to everyone in the industry.

This is a vibrant, fun and lucrative market. Results would indicate that the franchisors in this segment are doing a great job of investigating new opportunities, providing training and supporting their franchisees with great infrastructure that would be hard to match as a smaller independent. Find article here PrintingNews. com/21063037 ■ May 2019 WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage

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Windigo Signs Takes Soft Signage to the Next Level Printed textiles are rapidly replacing vinyl and rigid materials for signage, and Tempe’s Next Level Signs has leapt into so-called “soft signage.” Founder Mark Baldwin has launched a sister company, Windigo Signs, to offer a robust, custom-made and weather-resistant alternative for outdoor soft signage mounting Article by Richard Romano

“

Every time I go to the airport I’m really shocked at how much retrograding and updating they’ve been doing to fabric graphics,” said Mark Baldwin, founder and principal of Tempe’ Ariz.’s Next Level Signs. “They’re mostly the LED SEGs [silicone edge graphics], but you’re still seeing a lot of floor stands.”

Indeed, if you have been out and about in the world lately, you have seen soft signage proliferate, especially in retail environments.

“I haven’t seen a vinyl banner in a mall in several years,” Baldwin said.

“It’s all fabric. It’s nice to see fabric continuing to take over in certain areas.”

Next Level Signs, which Baldwin founded in 2001, offers a wide variety of indoor and outdoor signs, with an emphasis on various kinds of textilebased (or “soft”) signage. And a lot of soft signage is today replacing older non-soft signage.

“We’ve been doing more retail Richard Romano Richard Romano has been writing about the graphic communications industry for 20 years. He is an industry analyst and author or co-author of more than half a dozen books.

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stores lately,” Baldwin said. “We’ve been doing a lot more retrofitting, as well as building out of new stores.

We have a contract with a firearms store, and they’ll do 10 SEG light panels in one of their stores. Every time they build a new location, we’re putting in 10 or 12 frames, and it lightens up the whole interior of the building.”

In SEG, a silicone gasket is sewn onto the edge of the printed fabric graphic, which then snaps into an aluminum frame. The graphic is pulled taut and looks identical to rigid signage. LED lighting can

be added to side- or backlight the graphic.

Next Level Signs also offers some complementary products such as table throws, which are printed on textiles, but are easier to produce as they don’t need the meticulous measurement and cutting that signage fitted to frames require.

In 2015, Baldwin launched Windigo Signs, which offers custom frame options for outdoor signage.

As anyone who has ever installed outdoor signage knows, the elements—especially wind—can play havoc with graphics. So Baldwin

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE developed an alternate solution to conventional soft signage mounting options—specifically, pole pockets, which are sewn onto banners, be they vinyl or textile, to insert mounting poles.

As anyone who has ever installed outdoor signage knows, the elements— especially wind— can play havoc with graphics.

“My theory with the Windigo products was to replace the pole pocket banner,” Baldwin said. “I’ve done so many pole pocket banners in my day, and when you have round poles and the wind comes up, they spin around. They’re never taut,

they’re hard to read and they just don’t do well.”

The Windigo products are frames that comprise several blow-molded

plastic components that fit together: a straight piece, a corner piece and a hinge piece, the latter of which is Baldwin’s patented design. With this modular approach to frames, signs can be small or large. They can also be combined in various ways to make a light-pole sign or a sidewalk sign.

Windigo recently introduced a new real estate sign, as well.

“You could do a 24-by-72-inch light-pole sign, put the components in a small box, fold up the graphic and put it in there, ship the package, unbox it, put the pieces together, and then slide the graphic over the top of it with a zipper at the bottom,” Baldwin said.

The Windigo Signs have been wind-tunnel tested to 45 miles per hour—but Baldwin has done some of his own testing.

Continue on page 57

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

The Urban Building

Wrap Game

Any why playing it can be music to advertisers’ ears.

Article by Mark Vruno

W

hen it comes to winning football games, preparation and execution are two key factors. There are a lot of moving parts -- namely large human bodies -- realigning and making adjustments on the fly to evade or move other large bodies out of their way to the end goal.

Promoting professional football games doesn’t get any bigger than the National Football League’s (NFL) championship game in early February – the “super” international event that cannot be named for fear of trademark infringement. We have, however, received permission to share with WFS readers some slick images of the building wraps that were employed three months ago in Mark Vruno Mark Vruno, a Chicagobased business publishing professional, has reported on the global commercial print industry for more than 20 years.

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Atlanta for the big game tagged with Roman numeral LIII. Sharing photos and messages is one of the major benefits that lures advertisers to massive-scale building wraps. That’s because wrapping a building is an event in itself. “Observers are curious during the installation process,” says Hayes Holzhauer, executive VP of operations at bluemedia, a national signage company. His firm is based in Tempe, Arizona, but Holzhauer spent a lot of time this past January in Atlanta, where the big game was played.

“People want to take ‘selfies’ in front of the branded buildings and post them to their social-media accounts on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook,” he notes.

NFL marketers have a name for the online, viral effect: “They call the free advertising ‘sharable moments,’” Holzhauer adds. (Consumers of a certain age similarly will recall the “Kodak moments” analog (television) ad campaign from the 1980s.) People who share online links to this article, for example, are helping to indirectly

promote the NFL football and Budweiser beer brands.

No more “Dilly Dilly” The fictional Bud Light Knight surprisingly was slain by an HBO “Game of Thrones” dragon in a dualbranding duel/TV commercial during the super game on the evening of Sunday, February 3. Before his demise, the adult beverage marketers at Bud Light and creative agency Wieden + Kennedy (New York) had spent more than 18 months developing the knight’s character along with his humorous, medieval marketing kingdom. And there he was: larger than life on a building in Atlanta, wielding a mighty sword in his right hand and hoisting a football embossed with the official game logo in his left.

The imposing knight image “stood” more than 160 feet tall (1,945 inches from the waist up), wrapping around a corner of the skyscraper.

The massive graphic was masked

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE and diecut using a Zund G3 Digital Cutter, Holzhauer reports. The flatbed machine features precise, Swiss engineering. Additional triangular signage above the imposing, armorclad image spanned the entire, 200foot building width.

The media selected for these “super” building graphics in Atlanta was EconoVue 70/30, a perforated, one-way window film manufactured by Clear Focus, a French company with North American sales run out of Chicago (Franklin Park, IL). “We printed them on a Durst 312r,” Holzhauer reveals. Durst Image Technology’s 312r model is a grand-format (3.2m), roll-to-roll UV inkjet printer equipped with proprietary, Quadro Array 12M print heads that feature more than 24,000 nozzles and employ Variodrop technology. A droplet size of 12 picoliters yields a resolution of up to 1,200 dots per inch (dpi).

Wasserman Media Group, a sportsmarketing firm based in Los Angeles, was bluemedia’s client for this exciting project. On a slightly smaller scale, gondolas on the Centennial Park Ferris Wheel were wrapped with logos from each of the NFL’s 32 football teams. (SkyView Atlanta and the NFL was the combined clientele.)

Holzhauer could not talk with WFS for very long: He was busy on the phone, overseeing the large-format execution of vibrant, eye-catching graphics in Nashville that will help to generate excitement about the 2019 NFL Draft (April 25-27). The league appealed to its fan base five years ago, when it moved the pro draft from New York City to Chicago in 2015 and ’16. Since then it has been held in Philadelphia and Arlington, Texas.

Millennials want ‘experiences’ The visually impactful marketing concept of wrapping entire buildings plays into the e-wallets of members of the often owner-phobic Millennial

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generation, most of whom will gladly spend hard-earned money (from their debit cards) on atypical experiences.

“All people had to do was look up.

Graphics were part of the experience all around Centennial Olympic Park [in Atlanta],” Holzhauer explains, an area that spans more than 20 acres and is situated one mile from the spectacular game venue: Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

The entirety of the two-year-old stadium -- which can seat 71,000 people -- was wrapped up like a gigantic present for football fans who made the trip to Atlanta. An image of the Lombardi Trophy graced one side of the façade, while a huge version of the NFL’s red-white-and-blue shield logo was centered on another.

In addition to the NFL, bluemedia also worked closely with GMR Marketing, an engagement-marketing advertising agency based in New Berlin, WI. The firm was founded in 1979 by Gary M. Reynolds (GMR), now chairman, who many industry observers credit with originating the practice of engagement marketing.

(Reynolds remains chairman of GMR Marketing, which in 1998 became part of NYC-based Omnicon Group’s global media network.)

Host cities, such as Atlanta and Nashville, often will change zoning regulations during major events that are economic boons to tourism. Most cities are cooperative, according to Holzhauer. “We had a good experience in Houston [in 2017], but San Francisco gave us a hard time [in 2016]. Atlanta embraced our wraps this year,” he says. City officials saw the week-long event “as a revenuegenerating source. They designated zones and charged per square foot.”

Building wraps have become more commonplace sights in the past three to five years, believes Gary Schellerer, Jr., VP and partner of ER2 Image Group in Hanover Park, IL, a Chicago suburb. “Wraps are a great way for advertisers to step out of the box,” he explains. Each year his firm produces multiple, large (16x30’) banners for the NeoCon commercial design show ( June 10-12 in 2019) held inside Chicago’s 89-year-old Merchandise Mart, which is the largest commercial building in the world featuring four million square feet of floor space.

So much “depends on the town and local government regulations,” Schellerer points out. “Some municipalities are more regulated than others. Chicago’s signage codes traditionally have been more stringent. There are building commissioners and [city] trustees behind it.” On other side of the dice, “It seems like nearly every building in Las Vegas has been wrapped since 2014,” he says with a laugh.

One of the most ambitious projects ER2 Image Group has embarked on is Color Jam, the biggest public art installation in the history of Chicago, a few years ago. A vision of artist Jessica Stockholder, the Continue on page 56

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TEXTILE & APPAREL

Retail Expert Shares Thoughts on Digital Transformation While the retail and apparel industries are moving to more digital technologies and processes, many observers still believe we are in the infancy of the analog-to-digital transformation. Senior Editor Cary Sherburne recently spoke to a digital advocate to gain insight into the industry’s progress.

Article by Cary Sherburne

F

ounded in 2002, Chicagobased ArcherGrey has established itself as an authority in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, helping companies adopt and integrate a robust and comprehensive approach to PLM. The company primarily works with PTC’s suite of software, Windchill and FlexPLM, with FlexPLM specializing in the apparel, footwear and consumer goods industries.

Kelly Price, the company’s Director of Business Development for FlexPLM, comes from a retail background, with more than 20 years of experience in product development and technical design at companies like Chico’s FAS, Abercrombie and Fitch and Target.

“At Chico’s, I was involved with the selection and roll-out of a PLM solution,” she said. “We rolled it out to all three brands over seven and a half years. After that, I moved into consulting.”

In addition to helping companies with PLM implementations with ArcherGrey, she chairs the Technical Committee for PTC’s FlexPLM where they work with current customers to gather feedback to improve their PLM experience and help to influence improvements in

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Kelly Price, Director of Business Development for FlexPLM

the software.

“We implement the software and help clients with integrations, process improvements, road mapping and customization, as needed. We work very closely with many major retailers; in fact, we have worked with over 46% of all North American major retailers.”

Companies implement PLM solutions to help speed time to market, improve collaboration,

reduce redundancy, improve product quality, reduce prototyping and sampling costs and to identify opportunities for growth. It covers the entire product development process, from assortment planning to design, specification development, sourcing, costing and more. As the fashion and retail ecosystem continues on its analog-to-digital transformation path, PLM is a core component.

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TEXTILE & APPAREL 3D modeling and rendering is one aspect of the concept-to-design process gaining popularity among fashion brands and retailers.

“I would not say 3D modeling is mainstream yet,” Price said. “The primary focus of the recent Product Innovation Conference was around 3D, and many companies have adopted it or are beginning to.

But we are only about halfway up the hill and nowhere near the top.

Companies are being very careful about how they use 3D modeling.

Typically, they start small scale with a core or basic product. Some are using it just for products that have prints, for scale approval, layout, etc.”

Organizational change management is the hardest part of implementing 3D modeling.

“Most companies and their teams are structured around those who have 2D design backgrounds with Adobe Illustrator, and 3D requires a different skillset and mindset. Many retailers rely on their suppliers to execute the 3D creation rather than bringing it in-house. Then they will use that 3D creation in the design process, but not run it through the whole fit process. Some are starting to use 3D rendering for sales samples instead of hauling physical products around. And companies are also using it for online images, minimizing the need for expensive photo shoots.”

With that in mind, ArcherGrey is engaged in proof of concept exploration with various clients to help build a roadmap that incorporates 3D. ArcherGrey also helps clients realize the value of the roadmap through their implementation services and is prepared to help clients in their transition to adopting 3D. “There is so much value in 3D modeling, but investing in it, finding

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the talent—a lot of retailers are hesitant to go there. Without a doubt, though, 3D modeling pays for itself tenfold when they do make the leap.”

Some of the issues around finding talent may be mitigated over the next few years, as many fashion students are learning 3D technologies as a basic part of their training. As these graduates begin entering the workforce in large numbers, they are likely to drive a faster rate of adoption.

Another element of the digital transformation that can help brands and retailers be more efficient is the use of 3D renderings in lieu of physical samples, either in the approval process or in the sales process.

Another element of the digital transformation that can help brands and retailers be more efficient is the use of 3D renderings in lieu of physical samples, either in the approval process or in the sales process. But according to Price, that’s not quite happening yet on any kind of large scale.

“The need for physical samples is not consistent across all retailers, but it exists in those that are more advanced in their technology adoption. Some of the more basic categories, like T-shirts or polos that are carried over season to season that may only be recolored are the most likely to use 3D renderings instead of physical samples. It’s still primarily used for basic products, not for high fashion.”

What does Price expect to see moving forward?

“The next big changes will be a lot more 3D,” she said. “And for both technology providers and retailers, augmented reality will gain steam. It fits nicely with 3D, being able to see the product in 3D, with its movement and other characteristics.”

She also cites the work of Matthew Drinkwater at the London College of Fashion’s Innovation Agency, especially his work with wearable technology, as another future direction for the industry.

“What they did with 3D and AR at a fashion show for Fashion Week, with humans and avatars interacting, was very compelling. The more that technology is refined, and when color can be rendered appropriately as well as the material and its drape, the more we will see adoption. The industry is becoming more and more technical.”

Right now, though, Price sees most companies investing in proof of concept.

“People often don’t want to be the first. It’s great there are leaders out there willing to take the opportunity to pave the way for everyone else.”

One company that is all-in on 3D is Jordache…check out the interview we did with them recently for more insight on how 3D technologies are being used in retail and fashion.

Find article here PrintingNews.com/ 21063042 ■

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TEXTILE & APPAREL

Unique.Fashion Provides

Tools, Community for Designers

The Fashion Institute of Technology and OnPoint Manufacturing announced a new development in fashion design that will enable more entrepreneurism to occur in this market. Unique.Fashion is a web portal for designers and buyers that is set to transform how fashion is marketed and produced. Senior Editor Cary Sherburne spoke with OnPoint Chairman Kirby Best to learn more.

Article by Cary Sherburne

A

t Gerber’s 2018 Ideation, keynote speaker and millennial designer Rebecca Minkoff commented that she and her brother, who is a partner in their business, “think like companies that can potentially disrupt us.”

The joint announcement between New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and OnPoint Manufacturing of Unique.Fashion is set to be one of those disruptors by making it easier for young fashion design graduates—or any fashion designer for that matter—to have access to software tools and an on-demand manufacturing platform that will help them get their designs to market in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. The site will initially be available to FIT students and graduates but will scale up to an open platform over time.

This partnership between FIT and OnPoint Manufacturing uses the Human Solutions sizing engine.

Users will be able to access tools available through a special website, Eliose.Fashion, to help in the design process and prepare their designs for manufacturing. Once a pattern is uploaded to the designer’s 48

Unique.Fashion website, it will be available for purchase. Designers are responsible for marketing their designs and driving customers to their microsites. Unique.Fashion asks for no long-term commitment or control over the design. The designer dictates what sizes they want to offer and maintains complete artistic control.

A unique feature of this site is the innovative sizing engine OnPoint Manufacturing has developed in collaboration with Human Solutions.

In this model, the designer uploads the garment, backed by a pattern and all of the necessary manufacturing instructions using the designer module of Unique.Fashion. Buyers can then select the garment they want to purchase and enter minimal data to determine size—age, height, weight and gender. With this data, the system automatically parses through the 27,000 avatars that Human Solutions has placed in the database to choose the size that is the closest fit. It then returns more than 100 measurements that are used to choose the pattern. Then the garment is ordered, paid for, manufactured on-demand and shipped.

“We are not limiting sizes to the

normal 2-4-6-8,” said Kirby Best, chairman of OnPoint Manufacturing.

“Sizes can include 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, etc.

Most fashion houses want to limit the sizes available in order to limit inventory risk. The limiting factor for our sizing—or micro-sizing as we term it—is the width of the fabric, whether it can accommodate larger sizes. Patterns for all of these sizes are automatically generated based on designer specifications. We will actually make as many as four million patterns for each style. Since they are created electronically, once we have grading and ratio rules done, it only costs a couple hours of computer time to generate these massive amounts of patterns.”

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TEXTILE & APPAREL

Best said that these four metrics have been proven to deliver accurate sizing. Plus, the ability to choose from 27,000 avatars for body shape is also a huge benefit. Best sees this as a disruptive force in the way fashion will be brought to market, if his experience in another on-demand market is any indicator.

Best previously ran on-demand book printer Lightning Source.

He said Lightning Source recently produced 290,000 unique titles in a single day and is a driving force in revolutionizing book printing.

While it will take Unique.Fashion some time to scale up to anything near those levels, Best believes these on-demand manufacturing solutions will do the same thing for fashion as on-demand book production has done for books. The benefits are the same: no minimum order quantity, no need for inventory, payment up front before the item is produced and a huge reduction in returns.

Currently, OnPoint Manufacturing is not digitally printing its fabrics

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due to the slow speeds of today’s digital fabric printers as compared to the rest of the manufacturing process, meaning he must keep fabric inventories on hand.

However, that is about to change with digital fabric presses such as the EFI BOLT, which prints at up to 90 meters/minute, coming to market next year. This would mean that only

base fabrics need to be inventoried.

In the book world, Lightning Source limited the types of paper that could be used for book printing, making for a simpler supply chain. One can imagine that the same thing will happen in on-demand manufacturing of apparel when everything from print through shipping is all under one roof, and as automated as possible.

Best said that the company continues to refine its sizing metrics to accommodate all body types.

“For example, a woman might be taller from the waist to the shoulder than the standard ratio, or shorter from waist to knees. We are starting to develop height ratios to accommodate these differences. We are also working on diagonal ratios to accommodate even more body shapes.”

Best is also keeping his eye on potential competitors, much like Minkoff, “thinking like companies that can potentially disrupt us.” One potential disruptor to the automated sizing model is the future of laser measuring, which is becoming less expensive and more accessible.

“That won’t be a problem for us,” he said, “since we will be able to feed those measurements into the system at the time of order.”

We encourage our readers to keep an eye on Unique.Fashion and other emerging technologies in the world of on-demand fashion with a view toward their own future strategies and the threat of disruption from non-traditional competitors. In today’s fast-paced and highly technological market, nimbleness is key. Unique.Fashion offers that nimbleness for fashion designers and opens the door for many more young, talented designers to get a good start on building a market following. Find article here PrintingNews.com/21063053 ■

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TEXTILE & APPAREL

Techtextil 2019

Generates Inspiration, Excitement Techtextil North America was a success by any measure. The show, which moved from Chicago to Raleigh, drew more than 3,000 textile and apparel professionals and included an impressive symposium program.

Article by Cary Sherburne

M

ore than 3,000 textile and apparel professionals gathered in Raleigh, N.C., for Techtextil 2019, a much stronger attendance than Chicago in 2017— not surprising, really, since much of the U.S. industry is centered in the Southeast. The event attracted 165 exhibitors, 91 of whom were new, demonstrating the vibrancy of the industry and the importance of the show.

As I walked around the show floor, I saw standing-room-only crowds at the Tech Talks and Lab sessions, as 50

well as lots of great conversations between exhibitors and attendees— and between exhibitors who were exploring new relationships. One especially interesting Tech Talk covered Black Hemp, a technology developed at Thomas Jefferson University under the direction of Dr. Mark Sunderland. This product is branded as a high-performance industrial hemp fiber that ticks all the boxes in terms of sustainability.

While there’s a lot to cover with 165 exhibitors, a few things stood out to me on my first day at the show.

Right at the bottom of the

escalators, Kyorene, a manufacturer of graphene-reinforced fibers, was the first booth I saw, It’s a versatile and relatively new material that garnered the Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester in the U.K. “Graphene is a thin flake of carbon, just one atom thick.…As a material it is completely new—not only the thinnest ever but also the strongest,” according to the Nobel Committee.

“As a conductor of electricity, it performs as well as copper. As a conductor of heat, it outperforms all

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TEXTILE & APPAREL Janet O’Regan, Director of Nonwovens Marketing at Cotton Incorporated, points out some unconventional uses for cotton, a renewable, highly sustainable agricultural product.

other known materials. It is almost completely transparent, yet so dense that not even helium, the smallest gas atom, can pass through it. Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again.”

Kyorene is proving the benefits this material can bring to performance apparel including bacterial and odor reduction, thermal regulation and UV resistance. The company is working with brands, who in turn will likely begin specifying these fibers to their mill partners.

On the topic of fibers, Cotton Incorporated showed some amazing products, including Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo and baby lotion with cotton content, 3D filaments with cotton content, that reduce the need for petroleum-based content, and nonwoven products from around the world made from cotton.

Janet O’Regan, director of nonwovens marketing for this notfor-profit organization was quick Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, the developers of Kyorene’s graphene-reinforced fibers, won a Nobel Prize in Physics for the material.

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to point out that cotton is not only a renewable resource, but it is a drought-resistant agricultural product that can be grown with limited amounts of water.

Exhibitors also showed advanced embroidery machines, a variety of yarns, fibers and advanced

fabrics, GTI’s controlled lighting systems, and color management solutions, including a new DataColor SpectraVision benchtop spectrophotometer. It measures color on previously “unmeasurables” like multicolored prints and heathers.

There was something for everyone, and the opportunity to stumble on unexpected solutions that could make a big difference to any business.

Techtextil Messe Frankfurt put together an outstanding seminar program. We heard about the great work being done with personal protective equipment (PPE), using new technologies to protect our first responders. Later in the day, we learned about technical textiles used in the aerospace industry, like athletic wear on the International Space Station and safety equipment on airplanes.

The symposium didn’t disappoint either. The room was packed at 8 a.m. for a discussion of the “Smart Textile Ecosystem.” This

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TEXTILE & APPAREL was primarily focused around the scalability issues with embedding technology in fabrics for advanced wearables and making these items as convenient and effective as possible for consumers.

Allison Bowles and Rebecca Wilson, from the Flex Innovation Center in Boston, spoke about their combined backgrounds in textiles and technology. They are on a quest to find a middle road between the tight tolerances required in electronics manufacturing and the more flexible tolerances in textiles. The two have worked hard to educate each other about their respective disciplines and seek ways to better blend them.

“We are heading down the same path as plastic with e-textiles if we don’t do something different.”

Marty Lawrence, of Dream Catcher Innovations, also pointed out that had we fully understood the environmental impacts of plastics, especially end-of-life of plastics products, back in the early days, perhaps we would have done things differently.

“We are heading down the same path as plastic with e-textiles if we don’t do something different,” he said.

Another fascinating session was 52

DataColor’s SpectraVision benchtop spectrophotometer can measure color on previously “unmeasurable” materials like multicolored prints and heathers.

about how older companies can partner with new and innovative companies to bring new products to market and develop innovative solutions. The collaboration of the Manufacturing Solutions Center (MSC), Kentwool and Texdel resulted in the development of Kentwool Sensationwool socks with Nüfabrx technology. These socks provide pain relief for up to 30 washes. They provided insight into what you need to do, what you can negotiate, what you shouldn’t negotiate and how a legacy company can be a good channel for bringing innovative products to market. The connections and resources of the MSC helped put the two together and get the product to market with the right messaging.

If you weren’t able to attend Techtextil, or are still hungry for more inspiration, consider attending Texprocess May 14-17, 2019, in

Frankfurt. The leading international trade fair for processing textile and flexible materials will have an expanded focus on microfactories.

Four of them will include three lines: an integrated production process for manufacturing tailored clothing including the use of augmented reality and virtual reality, a line showing the creation of 3D knits for shoes and a line processing technical textiles for the automotive and furniture industries.

Can’t make it to Europe this spring?

Then be sure to look forward to the combined Techtextil/Texprocess show in Atlanta, Ga., May 12-14, 2020.

By the way, Messe Frankfurt is putting its money where its mouth is in terms of sustainability: by 2020 and beyond, Messe Frankfurt will use all renewable energy for its electricity. Kudos!

Find article here PrintingNews. com/21063614 ■

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE NEWS Easy Cut Studio Added Support for HobbyCut, JinKa, MOMO and Vinyl Express Panther Plotters

Trotec Introduces New High-Speed Laser Model at ISA Show Trotec unveiled the most recent addition to its Speedy laser series at the ISA show in Las Vegas. Optimized to achieve the highest quality results at even higher speeds, the new Speedy 400 is the fastest and most productive mid-size laser engraver in the industry. The new model produces high-quality results even at its maximum engraving speed of 170 inches per second â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which is 30 inches per second faster than the previous model. The new model also features a revolutionary new motion planning system called OptiMotion, which calculates the cutting speed and acceleration based on the geometry in real time.

This is standard for larger cutting systems, but it is a true innovation for medium-sized engraving systems.

With the increased power of 250 watts, the Speedy 400 enables higher process speeds, as well as the processing of thicker materials.

Other new features include an option to add a MOPA fiber laser source, allowing increased engraving speeds, and patented Sonar Technology, which comes standard on the new model. This improves results and efficiency by automatically detecting the focus point at each position of the worktable and automatically correcting focus position.

www.printingnews.com/21062061

EasyCut Studio launched Easy Cut Studio version 4.1.0.6, a user-friendly cutting plotter application that aims to offer you all the necessary tools in creating vinyl letterings, decals, and general signs that you can cut using your vinyl plotters. The latest version of Easy Cut Studio provides support for more than 60 different vinyl cutting plotters including HobbyCut, JinKa, PrismCut, MOMO, KingCut and Vinyl Express Panther cutting plotter. The both Mac and Windows version of software has been tested to work with these cutting machines above.

In addition, The new version also fixed default baud rate setting for Refine and PixMax cutters. Easy Cut Studio brings cutting software needs into one simplified, easy to use program. Create text, shapes and freehand graphics at any size to cut in vinyl. It includes a more robust set of sign making tools such as image tracing, shadows, scanning, welding, text on arch, objects on path, node editor, rhinestone, gradient fills, transparent fills, special effects and more. Easy Cut Studio version 4.1.0.6 comes with Lifetime License at a starting price of $59.95 USD. This software is available for both macOS and Windows platforms.

www.printingnews.com/21061029 Massivit 3D Launches New Versatile Massivit 1800 Pro 3D Printing Solution in the US Massivit 3D Printing Technologies has expanded its portfolio of solutions with the new Massivit 1800 Pro that offers brand-new features including ground-breaking, patented Variable Resolution, new advancements optimizing durability and resolution, and remote-operation options to significantly enhance operation efficiency & convenience. The Massivit 1800 Pro brings to the market a patented Variable Resolution capability that can be predefined via the printerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Massivit SMART Pro software to allow a change of print mode (resolution level and layer thickness) on-the-fly during the printing of a model, according to the varying requirements of different model sections. In addition, a new Mega Quality resolution mode allows for faster, high-quality printing of large objects, optimizing gel consumption and printing time. These two new features enable an even more cost-effective production process. This new addition joins the Massivit 1800 Flagship 3D Printer and the Massivit 1500 Exploration 3D Printer in a portfolio developed to empower print service providers as they expand their business into new markets with high quality 3D printing capabilities.

www.printingnews.com/21063176 May 2019 WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage

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TEXTILE & APPAREL

Minnows, Whales and Digital Technologies, Oh, My! As the analog-to-digital transformation heats up for textiles, the opportunities for entrepreneurs heat up as well. Other industries’ transformations show that opportunities not only abound for entrepreneurs, but established businesses risk the most from non-traditional competition.

Article by Cary Sherburne

F

ashion designer Rebecca Minkoff thinks “like companies that can potentially disrupt us.”

That’s a key strategy in today’s crazy world. And the irony is that Minkoff is one of those disruptors.

She leverages digital technologies in ways others haven’t even thought, such as interactive mirrors in her stores that let customers FaceTime with friends on fashion choices, request a glass of champagne in

54

the dressing room, and offer up suggestions for complementary apparel and accessories.

Having covered the commercial printing industry for many years, through its own analog-to-digital transformation, I witnessed the price many printing companies paid for ignoring the internet, considering it a fad and continuing to do business as usual. At the same time, entrepreneurs and angel investors jumped on the dot-com e-commerce bandwagon, and dozens

of e-commerce-related businesses popped up. Many of them didn’t survive, but others, like VistaPrint, did. They have continued to survive over the years, at the expense of small commercial printers. VistaPrint’s automation enabled them to profitably produce far below what was then the average market price.

On the hardware side, Xerox’s revolutionary DocuTech spawned the digital printing industry. Within a few short years, Xerox built DocuTech into a $2 billion business and

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TEXTILE & APPAREL their homes and persons. And they can quickly find resources to do so online—everything from drapes and carpets to sweaters, footwear and just about any other textile-based product you can imagine.

Perhaps Spoonflower is the VistaPrint of customized clothing.

Spoonflower’s evolution over the years was led by its community— paying close attention to what customers were doing with the custom fabric they were ordering.

One of the results was Sprout, an offshoot of Spoonflower that allows people to take advantage of “digital making.” Spoonflower

virtually obliterated black-and-white offset printing.

Established players in the textile and apparel industry should take note of these experiences and, like Minkoff, give serious thought to the types of companies that could disrupt their businesses. Understanding the trends and the gaps between what these entrepreneurs offer vs. what your established company offers is the first step. Making sure you are in tune with what your customers are looking for is also critical. By investigating these two areas with a completely open mind, your company may be able to avoid some of the pitfalls inherent in doing business during a period of transformation.

One of the key market trends, enabled by digital technologies, is the increased demand for personalized and customized textiles and apparel.

It’s not only the millenials and G-Zers that want stuff made just for them. Retiring Baby Boomers are also seeking the ability to customize

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Making sure you are in tune with what your customers are looking for is also critical. has partnered with a number of pattern-makers around the globe to enable consumers to digitally “make” a garment by choosing the surface design(s) they want and either make it themselves or take advantage of Sprout’s white glove service to have the garment made for them. CEO Gart Davis posits that the “minnows”—smaller designers and manufacturers using sites like Etsy to go to market—can become “whales” that can disrupt established businesses by creating brand-new businesses more in tune with market demands.

Another great example is Zazzle— whether you want to customize or

personalize paper or textile products, Zazzle probably has a solution for you. Chief Fulfillment Officer Charles Ohiaeri said that in the textiles and apparel industry, the normal way of doing business has involved padding supply chains, guessing forecasts for future demand. But with digital technologies, empowered customers can order customized materials eliminating the waste in a traditional textiles and apparel supply chain.

Businesses like these are empowering designers as well, making made-to-measure garments and other textile-based products easy and affordable to produce.

Take Ariel Swedroe, for example.

She followed her passion for fashion at age 8. At 15, she has a growing fashion design business. Ariel was a keynote speaker at the recent EFI Connect conference in Las Vegas, where she shared her experiences, her thoughts about the future and gave the audience a fashion show.

She’s an amazing young woman whose star is only going to shine brighter over the years. Her story is inspiring. And what she has been able to accomplish is enabled by using digital technologies, from concept through design, printing and manufacturing.

These are just a few of the stories that demonstrate that the analog-todigital transformation in textiles and apparel is real, gaining steam and becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Check out the WhatTheyThink textiles section for more stories about enterprising entrepreneurs who are taking advantage of these technologies to express their own creativity and enable the creativity of others. How many of these minnows will grow up to be whales? And what impact will they have on your business?

Find article here PrintingNews. com/ 21063615 ■

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE Continued from page 45

imaginative 3D display took up the entire intersection of State and Adams streets in the Financial District downtown. Artwork decorated streets, sidewalks and walls. The massive undertaking “took nine months to orchestrate,” Schellerer recalls. https://jessicastockholder.info/

projects/art/color-jam/ However, banners larger than 3,000 to 5,000 square feet represented only about 5% of ER2’s overall business in 2018. “We don’t do a lot of full building wraps,” Schellerer shares, but he anticipates growth in this area as more cities such as Las Vegas, Reno, NV, and Lake Tahoe, CA, loosen their signage codes. Holzhauer adds: “Las Vegas is lifting its ordinance about on-premise advertising only [for building wraps], so it’s going to get crazy there.”

Not everybody’s vehicle On the franchised print side, most of Fastsigns International’s 700 locations don’t do much in the way of building wraps, admits senior marketing VP Drue Townsend. She describes this type of large-format application as a true specialty, especially installation. “There are mesh banners, window perf and even some ink painting techniques that appear to be printed,” Townsend notes.

“There are a lot of engineering requirements for these types of wraps and banners, both temporary and more permanent,” she adds. In addition to bluemedia, Townsend cites firms such as Britten, Inc. (Traverse City, MI) and ICL Imaging (Framingham, MA), both of which do a substantial volume of this type of high-profile work.

And SpeedPro Imaging president/ CEO Larry Oberly doesn’t necessarily agree with the growth assessment from ER2’s Schellerer. “Based on our experience and from what we’ve 56

Brick and mortar contours Across the U.S. border in the Pacific Northwest, Epic Imaging, based Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, completed a large exterior wall graphic on brick for Canadian telecommunications firm Telus Corp. Completed in June 2018, the mural features the vibrant artwork of local artist Serena Love, who won a Telus-sponsored art competition, on their corporate building in Grand Prairie.

For its application material, Epic Imaging selected a Mactac media substrate for exterior wall surfaces, but it wasn’t their first choice.

“Epic opted to use a wall graphic material offered by one of Mactac’s competitors. However, during the reveal ceremony, parts of the graphic came off …,” says Brittany Eppley, Mactac marketing communications manager. “As this was a high-profile project, Epic this time chose Mactac’s IMAGin RoughRAP RR100 product.”

IMAGin RoughRAP is a 2.1-mil. gloss white, high-performance PVC vinyl film (54” x 150’) designed for application on brick walls and other rough, textured surfaces. It is highly conformable and features a high-tack permanent opaque, acrylic adhesive as well as a 90-lb. poly-coated, twoside release liner for excellent lay-flat characteristics.

Epic used a Roland Eco Solvent SOLJET 540 to print the large-scale graphic and came back to install it the next day. Although the weather conditions were extremely cold, the installation team pushed through, taking their time and applying heat as needed to get the job done on the rough, exterior surface. Epic also used Mactac’s PERMACOLOR RAYZor 1.5 mil Matte Laminate (clear), which is designed for long-term outdoor, marine, fleet or vehicle markings on flat, curved, corrugated, riveted surfaces and textured wall applications.

“The end result was perfect – not to mention brighter and more vivid than the first material used,” praises Josée Robinson, Epic’s VP of operations. “Especially since the first material we used failed, we desperately needed to make our customer happy and knew Mactac material would do that. Through the years, we’ve tried many alternative materials from other manufacturers, but Mactac is the only one that consistently stands up to the demands of our installations.”

learned from several publications and vendor partners, building wraps in general are not in a growth stage.

This is mainly due to the increasing number of municipalities enacting regulation to restrict outdoor advertising,” says Oberly, who is based in Centennial, CO. “Given each municipality is writing its own regulations, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a print service provider and an installation company to be well versed in all of the subtleties by locale,” he cautions. “There will still

always be a place for building wraps, in our opinion, but it doesn’t appear that they will have the same growth opportunity as vehicle wraps.”

Meanwhile, the team at bluemedia is excited about next year’s NFL championship experience, which is coming to South Beach and sunny Florida in early 2020; kickoff is February 2. “We have big plans for Miami [Gardens],” Holzhauer promises. Let the super-wide game preparations begin! Find article here PrintingNews.com/21063613 ■

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE Continued from page 43

“I put a 4-inch steel post in the back of my pickup truck and hung a sign off the side,” he said. “I was going to drive around 70, 75 miles an hour out on the back roads to ‘break’ the sign. I wanted to figure out when it broke, where it would break and why would break.”

The thing is, it didn’t break.

“I got the truck up to 83 miles an hour and the sign turned in the wind.

When I stopped, the sign came back to center. So it actually exceeded my expectations.”

And not just Baldwin’s: Windigo Signs won a 2017 SGIA Product of the Year Award.

The Windigo Signs approach sounds like a more robust-outdoor

version of silicone-edge graphics.

And, in fact, Baldwin also offers custom SEG solutions.

“One of my featured products that I just love are the SEGs,” he said.

He cuts his own frames and provides power and lighting sources.

“I have 11 different extrusions— five that are lit, five that are non-lit, and one that’s either/or. Those are fun projects.”

They can also be high-margin projects, especially compared to smaller sidewalk signs.

“They’re $8,000 and $10,000 jobs instead of a sidewalk sign that’s a couple hundred dollars. SEG jobs are

42-43_57_SoftSignage.indd 57

It took a long time to get all the settings right, to get the ink right, the profiles right. much bigger,” Baldwin said.

A lot of those are trade show graphics for large accounts.

“We did an 8-by-10 fully-lit back wall for a trade show booth with end caps—all SEG—for a helicopter company,” he said. “They had a bunch of different quadrants, because they change the graphics around at each show they go to, and they didn’t want to have just one big panel.”

Baldwin’s Next Level and Windigo Signs have come to specialize in soft signage and related fabric printing.

The company uses a 3.3-meter Canon d.gen direct-to-fabric textile printer, and has a full complement of sewing machines and other finishing equipment, offering complete printing and finishing services.

Getting into textile printing and soft signage was not without its challenges, particularly when it came to mastering the dye-sublimation process.

“The learning curve was actually greater than I ever anticipated on fabrics,” Baldwin said. “It took a long time to get all the settings right, to get the ink right, the profiles right.

You’ve got to get the media right.

You’ve got to get the speed and the heat right. Once we dialed it in, though, it’s been running like a top for the last year.”

Baldwin runs direct-to-fabric rather than transfer dye-sublimation, and has learned that each process has its trade-offs.

“The benefit of the direct-to-fabric is you get a little more ink on the fabric,” he said. “Transfer is a little less ink, so you can get a little finer text, and a little finer detail. But you can get a little

more ink and a little more durability and a little bit more pop on the color when you go with the direct.”

Direct-to-fabric has traditionally proven to be ideal for flags—which is one of Baldwin’s major product areas.

Baldwin is always looking for new product areas to add.

“There are pop-up banners, and I just got a roll of the mesh fence banner material, so we’re going to start doing fence banners. There’s a big market for that here in our area, and I get a lot of requests. We’ll run a couple of tests on it, get the profiles dialed in, and then I’ll add that stuff to the website.”

Baldwin’s chosen marketing strategy is online, and he has learned search engine optimization and how to choose the right keywords to drive customers to his sites.

“It’s nice when you’re in the sign business and you can have a website presence and get business from all over the country,” he said. “You come in in the morning and you’ve got five or eight orders already there, which pays all the bills for the day.”

Like most businesses these days, he is expanding his social media presence and has hired a company to help with managing social and other online media initiatives. In fact, online marketing was Baldwin’s M.O. from the start.

“I never wanted to be a sign company with a territory or boots on the ground or work in my local sales area,” he said. “I always wanted to be a web-based company that just happened to sell signs. That’s the theory behind both Windigo Signs and Next Level Signs.” Find article here PrintingNews.com/21063613 ■

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May 2019 WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage

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EVENTS

The Future Belongs to the Risk-Takers, and There is a Chance That Might Not Be You

Article by Thayer Long

P

RINT 19, the print industry’s signature event, is going back to Chicago Oct. 3-5, 2019.

Before you mark it on your calendars, you’ll want to first decide if this is the right place for you, because frankly, it might not be.

There is no better time to be in the print industry if you are a broadminded risk taker.

The truth is, most people like to “think” they are broad-minded risk takers while in reality, most of us like to play it safe.

PRINT 19 is not going to be all things to all people. And we don’t expect or pretend that it is. It isn’t for the survivalists – those who remember and lament when print/ PRINT (and they mean both!) was as large as (fill in the blank). It is not for people who think that an inanimate piece of equipment is going to solve real human problems. It definitely is not for the hordes looking to invade the next vertical only to start another race to the bottom.

If that is what you are looking for in a trade show or conference, look elsewhere. Like in any industry, convergence is just a euphemism

Thayer Long Thayer Long is president of the Association for Print Technologies (APTech) and serves as president of the Graphic Arts Education and Research Foundation (GAERF).

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for commoditization. That industry chapter usually ends the story.

So, we intend to write a different chapter, because we think the story will go on.

PRINT 19 is built for print entrepreneurs and innovators who look beyond the past and the present. It is designed with care to tempt those who want to construct a better product for print consumers.

It is intended to transform print entrepreneurs who are excellent solution providers into creative problem solvers.

PRINT 19 will be a creative forum for attendees who are brave enough to share with one another both successes and failures.

Most business leaders I know have two versions of their story: the one they share with the world and the one they hide from the world. I certainly can identify with that. It’s time we hear the hidden versions, because it’s what you and I have done with our struggles that will define our future.

It is tough to beat Seth Godin as the event keynote from 2018 - but our crack education team of one (thanks Julie S!) did it again. We are excited to announce that Nicholas Thompson, editor-in-chief of Wired, is our keynote at the opening event.

Thompson has one of the most prestigious positions in the world of technology and his talk, “The Wired Future: Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Privacy, Social Media, Truth, Tech Companies and More,” couldn’t

be more future thinking.

In addition, the crack education team at APTech has put together the most robust Learning Experience you can imagine. There are more than 80 Learning Experience sessions that range from big-picture trend discussions to practical ones. Our genius sessions will provide relevant and actionable content as well as hands-on labs.

TechWalks, one of the most talked about features of PRINT 18 will return. These expert-led, curated exhibit hall tours will highlight a variety of topics of technical interest. I should say, “returning and improved” because we’re adding TechTalks to the line-up. These are manufacturer-led sessions about their latest technology breakthroughs.

And of course, we’re returning to Chicago, the heart of deep-dish pizza and the print industry. A whopping 20% of this country’s commercial print-related companies are located within a 200-mile radius of Chicago, and 139 of the industry’s top 400 companies, according to Printing Impressions, hail from the Midwest.

Attendance among those 400 companies averages 40% a year.

Last, and perhaps the most important to you print entrepreneurs, are the products, services and solutions featured that will help you build your business for the future.

That includes presses; software and workflow solutions, post-press/ finishing/bindery equipment; substrates, ink/toners, and consumables; mailing and fulfillment; and prepress equipment.

We have taken a risk to build something not for the masses but for the difference makers. Is it for you?

To register and for more information: https://www.

printtechnologies.org/PRINT19/ Find article here PrintingNews. com/21063670 ■

WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage May 2019

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PRINTING OUTLOOK 2019 The WhatTheyThink Overview of the Current State of the Printing Industry The Printing Outlook 2019 report provides detailed analysis of the latest WhatTheyThink Printing Industry Survey, the latest industry economic data and macroeconomic trends, as well as industry and cultural technological trends to look out for in 2019.

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The executive report was prepared by Richard Romano and looks back at 2018 and ahead to what the industry can expect, economically and technologically, in 2019. The report features the results of the WhatTheyThink Printing Industry Business Outlook Survey conducted in Winter 2018–2019, and includes current and expected business conditions, top business challenges, top business opportunities, and planned investments for 2019. Additional questions asked about shops’ interest in adding new specialty graphics areas such as wide-format or textile printing, as well as shops’ hiring plans for the next 12 months.

The report also offers the latest government data on printing industry shipments, establishments, profits, and employment, as well as the economy in general, and includes an industry forecast to 2023, as well as some technology and cultural trends the industry should prepare itself for in 2019.

Print business owners will find the report essential for their planning, in order to put the marketplace and their strategic actions in realistic perspective. Industry suppliers will benefit from the insights into printer decision-making processes and the foundation of new industry demographic data that debuts in this report. Non-economic trends also offer ideas for what to pay attention to in the new year, and larger cultural and technological; trends indicate where marketing professionals and brandowners will likely be focusing their promotional dollars.

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS ■■ 4 2% of respondents to our Winter 2018­–2019 survey said that 2018 revenues had increased by six percent or more compared to 2017.

■■ In terms of revenues, the strongest businesses continue to be either very small or very large shops, with the mid-size shops experiencing little revenue growth, especially when you adjust for inflation ■■ “Competition from other print providers” is now reported by print business owners as their number one challenge, with “increasing plant productivity” a close second.

■■ “Customers outsourcing more work to us” and “helping customers integrate print and non-print” were cited as the top business opportunities for 2019.

■■ Few print businesses have any substantial planned investments for 2019, but of those who do, binding and finishing equipment top the list.

■■ One-half of print businesses said they plan to hire staff in 2019

For more information visit our store today at: https://store.whattheythink.com/downloads/printing-outlook-2019/

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