Sign Show UK large format printers

Just got back from the sign Show UK.
Plenty to see but of most interest were the direct to substrate large format printers. In particular the 250GT from OCE , The new Mimaki and a Du Pont printer. Each has benefits and disadvantages but all open up a hugh range of new posibilities to the sign maker. Posters, banners, hoardings, signs, plus more obscure ideas such as customised golf balls. key fobs ar even doors! Buing a printer seems to be the easy part marketing the large format out put is another matter. From the point of view of exhibition panels and trade show graphics what benefits do these direct to panel large format UV printers offer. The obvious benefit from a large format printers point of view is the labour saving. There is no need to laminate then mount the print to board and cut round it. Simply put an a pre cut board of the correct size and press print. Sound too good to be true? The downside I would say is the quality. The OCE arizona scored on quality followed closley by the Mimaki. ( the Du Pont printer we looked at has more industrial heads and is designed to produced "signage" quality at higher speeds) . I would say that at the moment the quality produced by a HP or Epson watrer based printer is still the way to go for high quality photo realistic exhibition and trade show panels . All the printers we saw were new to market so with some fine tuning the quality may improve. Watch this space.

Sign Design

Quickstep online sign design is now live. We have taken he concept of designing banners and posters online and added the ability to design signs.
Image upload has been improved. It free to try some feel free to give it a try. sign design online