Images Magazine June 2018

INDUSTRY EVENT www.images-magazine.com 28 images JUNE 2018 Sign & Digital UK moved up a notch this year with big, good-looking stands and many new products to check out. With more than 185 suppliers exhibiting at the show in April, there was plenty to see, especially for those running a more garment-based business. Diversification was cited by many as a growing trend with more and more printers now seeing the benefit in offering customers both soft signage and customised clothing Review: Sign & Digital UK 2018 The talk of this year’s showwas the Direct Color Systems 1800z 15 UV DTG printer on the Resolute stand and the accompanying new F6T inks. Rui Carvalho, director of sales and business development at Direct Color Systems (DCS), demonstrated how this versatile DTG printer uses UV-curable inks to print directly onto T-shirts, plus a wide variety of other promotional products, with no pre-treatment required. [See ‘It’s DTG printing, but not as you know it’, on page 30 for more information on this new system.] On the Ribbon Writer stand, sales director Jo Insull explained the capabilities of the company’s ribbon-printing machinery. The desktop thermal-transfer printer can decorate ribbons with a width of 7mm to 100mm. More than 50 different ribbon colours are available along with a range of 20 coloured foils. The printer is supplied with bespoke software, and can also be used to create lanyards, iron-on labels and self-adhesive labels. John Falsetto, senior director of products at software company Corel, gave Images a detailed demonstration of the CorelDraw Graphics Suite 2018. The new software includes plenty to help save art departments time and stress, ranging from the clever Block Shadow tool (pictured) to one that adds perspective, and from the aptly named Symmetry tool to PhotoCocktail for creating photo collages. R A Smart’s stand was dominated by the 1.8m Impres 4180 printer. Available in two widths – 3.2m and 1.8m – the Impres is from the Dover Group, which incorporates the inkjet printer manufacturer MS Printing, ink manufacturer JK Group and software company Caldera. Alex Mighall, customer liaison at R A Smart, explained that the Impres 4180, which uses Kyocera print heads, is capable of printing transfers for dye sublimation, and can also be configured to dye sub print direct to fabric. Retail expert Mary Portas gave a keynote speech at Sign & Digital UK