Posted on
We had the opportunity to attend the 2012 Graph Expo in Chicago last week and thought we would share a few things with our readers. Though the show was slightly smaller in exhibitors, and there was a similar perception regarding attendance, however, the floor was a constant hustle of conversation and demonstrations. Digital printing was an obvious show leader but post print value add solutions were running a close second.
Kodak was showing off their Prosper inkjet unit which quicklyshot past the 2000 fpm mark and we were told it would hit speeds of 3000 fpm. This made an impressive demonstration as the roll to roll unit produced high quality, full color images for the attendees.
Scodix announced that two more units will be placed in the United States (Acculink, Greenville, NC was first installing their unit a year ago). In addition this year, they were demonstrating their new Rainbow attachment which can apply a glitter powder to the selected areas carrying the Scodix coating. Then the product is cured locking the glitter to the coating surface. This adds to the “pop” already generated by the Scodix process.
The University of North Texas purchased this Mailstream Engage unit from Pitney Bowes. This unique post digital press converter takes a digitally printed page, tri-folds it, then places that on a second page which is folded to create the outgoing envelope. The power of VDP can now be applied to the insert as well as the envelope. Cards can be affixed during the process and are matched using a 2D code scanner. In one of the case studies presented at the show a university used the Engage system to boost registration for a specific class. The campaign raised registration over 400% from the previous campaign. The unit is built by Macroprodm out of Australia and marketed through Pitney Bowes.
Delphax was demonstrating their Elan digital color printing unit using Memjet technology. Each print head has 70,400 jets that fire more than 700,000,000 drops of ink per second.
This year Graph Expo was a perfect example of where our industry is going and how fast it’s moving. A large array of wide format printers and die cutters provided opportunities in signage, vehicle wraps, proto-typing and other applications. Label printing is also being affected as more devices for providing high quality digital labels for packaging and product branding are being introduced. Complete with in-line laser die cutting.
To our surprise there was little mention of AR (Augmented Reality) and only one booth heavily promoting lenticular as a marketing media.
It’s a far cry from the years of seeing large format litho presses on the floor and the smell of ink. However, this year show was a great view of things to come. The Flesh Company uses various forms of digital imaging to produce variable numbering, 1D and 2D codes for a wide variety of document and label solutions. We are committed to keeping up with new technologies allowing us continue to supply our clients with custom business form, integrated, affixed and label designs.
Article link – https://www.fleshco.com/blog/2012/10/14/graph-expo-2012-review/
