The wide-format printing market has changed with the proliferation of digital devices. Buyers have already reacted to the industry’s new capabilities by seeking greater cost efficiencies. Many print runs have become shorter, more files are sent to a raster image processor (RIP), ‘versioning’ (customization) of graphics is becoming more common and there is greater pressure for quick turnarounds.
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Safety issues can arise when billboards and other signs are installed where nearby overhead electrical and communications lines pass horizontal to or above them. Signs installed too close to these lines can create hazards, not only for the installers themselves, but also for the signs’ owners, service professionals and maintenance staff.
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Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been around for more than 40 years, but only recent innovations and technological advances have made them bright enough to become useful for commercial settings. Today’s LEDs can sustain high light output in demanding operating environments.
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For a new winter campaign in 2012, Tourism Toronto recently commissioned the Torontoland Snowmen, a series of 20 unique fibreglass objets d’art, which were wrapped with digitally printed graphics specially designed by local and international artists and then installed throughout the city.
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New printing technologies continue to meet the needs of an increasingly ‘visual’ world. Using fabrics rather than traditional papers or polyvinyl chloride (PVC), for example, soft signage is now a rapidly growing segment of the wide-format digital printing market.
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Since 1997, McRae Imaging in Mississauga, Ont., has gradually made a name for itself in the wide-format graphics industry both through good fortune and by focusing on niche applications. Rather than operate as a full-service print provider, it has specialized in dye sublimation for the trade, outputting graphics on textile substrates and integrating them into custom-fabricated structures.
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One of the most visible landmarks in Mississauga, Ont., is the bright red main identification sign for the Hershey Centre, a sports and entertainment facility located next to Highway 403 and near Highway 401. The 5,500-seat multipurpose arena is home to a variety of events, including Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors junior hockey games, festivals and concerts.
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Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are used in a variety of stationary and mobile signs and professional displays, including large outdoor video screens, building façades, stadium screens, dynamic billboards, taxi signs, indoor retail displays, restaurant and supermarket signs, channel letters, etc.
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While light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have become a popular technology for sign illumination, due to their efficiency, longevity and performance, they have not yet succeeded other types of light sources in all mainstream applications. Box signs, for example, are still waiting for LEDs to become the new standard.
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While sign shops and other wide-format print providers have long offered colour matching capabilities, in most cases, the process remains impractical and inefficient. Today, the non-profit International Digital Enterprise Alliance’s (IDEAlliance’s) G7 methodology for calibration in four-colour process printing instead pursues the goal of ‘common appearance.’
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