Large format printing market has a bright future

(Largeformat Market Shows Growth)

In Europe, the large-format printing market is one of the fastest growing areas in the printing industry. Its rapid development has prompted the development of related technologies and industries, such as offset printing, screen printing, and digital printing equipment, as well as ink manufacturers. The higher requirements are due to the need for durability and better lightfastness for large format prints used outdoors.

First, the biggest technical challenge that printing materials encountered in large format printing is how to print high quality products on various types of large format printing materials. For the softer materials such as corrugated cardboard, knitwear, and plastics, the printing process is not very good because of its strong ductility. Recently, the application of a new technology has accelerated the progress of large-format printing, that is, direct printing on hard materials, such as printing on hard plastic, film-coated cardboard, glass, steel and other metals. As a result, large-format printing is no longer just making traditional small advertisements and billboards. Instead, it has been printed on walls, floors, buildings, and even hot air balloons, greatly broadening the application of large-format printing technology. .

In addition, the development of large-format printing technology has also had an impact on the structure of the printing industry in Europe. It has become a new force in printing and brought new vitality to ancient printing. At the same time, this impact also promoted the improvement of materials such as inks and substrates.

Some savvy manufacturers have not only focused on the traditional printing field, but have sought out customers in fields other than printing. Many people are using large-format printing to continuously expand their business. Material suppliers, especially plastic material manufacturers, have begun to pay attention to the large-format printing market. They can not only provide the materials needed for large-format printing, but also other materials such as inks.

At present, large-format printing is widely used in Northern Europe. It has attracted a large number of people engaged in graphic and advertising industries. As a marketing manager of a graphic company said: "Large-format advertising can often successfully attract everyone's attention, it can use the least investment and get a good publicity."

Second, rapid growth According to a survey agency in London, the growth rate of large-format advertisements is 10%-15% higher than that of the general advertising market, which is three times the growth rate of GDP.

The fastest growth in large-format printing production is the width of 2.5m-5m, and the increase in the range of 750mm-2m is also very fast. The expansion of the large format printing market has led to the development of large-format sheetfed offset presses. Their target customers are often customers in the packaging industry. However, printers often use their printing presses to print POP advertisements and large-scale posters.

Third, large-format printing methods also require ink suppliers. In digital printing and screen printing, corresponding ink technology must be matched. Mr. Eric Frank, BASF's Chief Technical Officer, said: "In the large format of offset printing, ink technology is not a problem. The real technical requirements are not based on the size of the format, but are based on the end use of the printed material. For example, outdoor advertising requires the ink to have strong light resistance, adapt to weather changes, and have high stability.” At present, the large-format offset printing has already entered the European poster and POP advertising market. However, screen printing ink manufacturers believe that offset printing will not shake the position of screen printing in large format printing, because the durability of offset printing ink is difficult to achieve.

At present, screen printing equipment has been able to carry out fully automatic, multi-color and can be linked with UV coating, so in the wide-format printing market with a web width of 1m-2.5m, screen printing and Digital printing and offset printing are highly competitive. Mr. Atkinson said: “The screen printing method is very suitable for printing large format graphics and POP advertising because of its fast printing speed and fast curing speed.” We do not think that digital printing and screen printing are large-format printing. The two kinds of printing methods are optional, but the two are considered to be complementary, and screen printing has cooperated with digital printing to establish a cooperative relationship. The main supplier of screen printing equipment Sweden's Svecia AB has entered into a cooperation agreement with NUR Macroprinters, a supplier of well-known large-format inkjet printing equipment in the world; Sericol, which has been engaged in digital inkjet technology for three years, was also last year. Collaboration with Xaar Company using Xaar inkjet heads.

Manufacturers of inks and printers are closely connected with suppliers of large-format printing materials. 3M is a major supplier of large-format printing materials. It also cooperates with digital printing machine manufacturers, such as digital printing equipment companies. The cooperation between Scitex and Vutek is one example. 3M is the main supplier of large-format printing materials in Europe. It directly supplies materials and compounds to users, and also recommends users to use their own inks and pigments.

Fourth, car body advertising 3M company has newly introduced the adhesive vinyl material, can guarantee the printing material of the picture and text is convenient to use, the price is cheap, especially in the advertisement printing on the commercial traffic body is more applicable.

Melanie, Marketing Manager at 3M's UK, said: “The advertisements for images on trucks have given us new markets. The owners of trucks are very much looking for his car to be able to change the rich patterns. There is nothing wrong with this. Therefore, the outside of the car The advertising has become a big market.” European car companies have also begun to pay attention to this point, a more successful company is Akzo Nobel decoration company, successfully entered the car's exterior decoration large format market. At present, the company already has two screen printing equipment and one digital printing equipment. Their own inks are only used in screen printing labels. In addition to using their own printing inks, they also need to buy digital products. Printing and screen printing inks.

There is no doubt that Akzo Nobel was successful in making large-format advertisements on vehicles. The large-format printing market has become a big market for ink suppliers.