Don't be fooled: While online shopping is at an all-time high, brick-and-mortar retail and P-O-P displays are alive and well. 

We asked seven of Big Picture's Editorial Advisory Board members to respond to the current state of the wide-format industry and reveal what we should expect in 2018.

Sarah Naccarato was searching for a new career, and she knew exactly what she wanted in her next position: less travel, more flexible hours, and freedom to express her creativity. After carefully analyzing the possibilities, Naccarato opened a sign shop the Signworld, a nation-wide organization with more than 240 independently owned and operated sign companies.

Before inkjet became the dominant printing process, screen printing was the only segment in the world of printing that could and does print on practically anything. During this time, most printing was done on some form of paper, where adhesion and durability were not primary factors in ink and substrate performance. The commercial screen printing industry began as a short-run process to reproduce images on paper and paper board substrates.
Sign companies adopted screen printing because it allowed them to use the same enamel paints they used on metal and wood substrates to create durable exterior graphics or signs in multiple quantities to supplement a product line of one-off handpainted signs. Even though these signs were printed and not brush painted, they were expected to have the same exterior durability. This was the beginning of the durable graphics market in printing.
The real monumental change took place in the 1950s, when plastics became available and affordable for signage. The plastics industry developed and plastics began to be used in every application imaginable. As soon as products were made out of plastics, there was a need to imprint functional and decorative images on the plastics. This led to the need for different inks. Inks for plastics all needed to adhere to plastics, but while some needed to be rigid on certain plastics, and others needed to be highly flexible. Some products required abrasion resistance, some chemical resistance, and some resistance to nuclear blasts (an infrequent request for Nazdar). After 50 or more years, we have a screen printing ink industry where there are 30 to 40 different types of inks made by several ink manufacturers in an effort to meet all these needs.

Roland DG Corporation, a leading supplier of digital print technologies with more than 35 years’ manufacturing expertise, will present live ‘print & cut without compromise’ demonstrations on its award-winning TrueVIS eco-solvent printer/cutter range at FESPA Global Print Expo 2018 on booth B20, hall 2.2.

Matt Richart and Dallas Fowler, co-owners of Louisville, Kentucky’s Digital EFX Wraps, hosted a two-day Roland DGA “Born to Wrap – Basics and Beyond” workshop in April. The class, sponsored by Avery Dennison, is part of a nationwide series aimed at graphic designers, production managers, print operators, graphics installers, and shop owners looking to expand their businesses. Big Picture’s associate editors attended Day One of the training to learn all about vinyl wrapping in the classroom and on the shop floor.