Wide Format Imaging

When it comes to introducing new materials, formats, and textures, companies serving the banner market show an unflagging passion for innovation.

Today, wide-format imaging professionals report they are able to provide their customers with a wider assortment of banner products than ever before. And it's not just the evolution in printers that is facilitating that variety. As printers change, so do the substrates used in banner printing, which are more durable, consistent, and receptive to printing than they were in the past. That's allowing print shops to produce banners that are larger, last longer outdoors and showcase brighter colors and more sharply defined graphics. The result: Banners that can be used for everything from touting a new fast food menu item to replicating the look of a famous Major League Baseball stadium.

Among wide-format imaging pros impressed with the greater array of substrates available is Matt Barton, owner of Atlanta's Digital Graphic Solutions. Barton's seven-year-old, four-employee shop produces banners in print runs from several to hundreds, as well as outputting point-of-purchase prototypes and store signage.

"It seems that as new devices come out for digital output, that is driving the manufacturers of materials to develop new products that are either larger or of different materials, altered to accommodate new printing capabilities," Barton says.

For instance, several years ago banner material was expected to last from six months to a year in the elements before starting to degrade, he reports. Today, there's no problem leaving a banner outside three or four years. Some of that increase in longevity stems from a move to UV curable inks, but much of it also flows from the materials themselves.

Some materials for basic inkjet machines are being reworked to provide the type of longevity associated with UV or solvent printing, Barton says. "That doesn't mean you'll take an aqueous-generated banner and get the same longevity, but it's far better than it was years ago," he adds.

Digital Graphic Solutions is working with an array of banner materials featuring new and different textures and surface characteristics as well. No longer are banner producers relegated to matte and glossy surfaces, Barton says. Banner materials come in different grades of matte and glossy finishes these days. And there are banner materials that can function as a kind of wallpaper, owing to their variations in texture.