We’ve gone way beyond the traditional print-on-paper model to take print into completely new areas, such as bespoke interior design and short run packaging.
We’re also using digital printing devices to produce a handful of copies of high quality affordable prints, instead of printing long runs that inevitably lead to much waste. Finally the bond between printing technologies and the work they produce is broken.
Digital presses can print on virtually any surface including three dimensional objects and wood, so now it’s up to you to turn your ideas into printed reality.
Over the coming months we will publish articles to help people new to digital printing to understand how it can help them express themselves. We’re calling this business Wild Format print, because that’s what it is: wild. There are no virtually constraints getting in the way of how you create printed versions of what your imagination invents.
Digital printing technologies, new substrates, inks and toners create all kinds of exciting and unrestrained possibilities for creative expression. Your amazing journey of discovery into Wild Format digital printing technologies will help you enhance how you communicate.
Whatever your interests from books to soft furnishings, the Wild Format series of articles can help you get the most out of your ideas and creativity. Whether its bespoke packages, custom fabric designs, signage, calendars, photo books or celebratory posters, the opportunities for new forms of expression are endless.
The digital opportunity
Digital technology creates unprecedented opportunities for sharing visual concepts in print, because it’s completely flexible. The technology can be configured for all sorts of output sizes, shapes and surfaces. It makes print universally accessible because the print process is no longer complicated or prohibitively expensive.
Anyone, anywhere, can have their ideas printed quickly and conveniently on materials that range from paper and board to glass, plastic, ceramics, metal, wood and textiles. Print production is no longer just for the elite, it’s no longer costly or convoluted and confusing. Those days are far behind us, and today’s printing industry is yours to drive. You can take control.
How is this possible?
The HP Latex 3600 is a wide format device that you can use for printing wall coverings. HP has a dedicated software package, HP Wall Art Suite, to handle the production details.
Print was once a messy, complex and high priced business run by specialists, cloaked in mystery and magic. But today, thanks to digital technologies and advances in material science, this elite model is long since dead and buried. Print in any format is accessible and affordable, from single copy prints to many thousands, from black and white to more than half a million and more colours.
The tools are available for you to create your own data files and get the results you expect straight from your desktop. Once you’ve got your files, photos for example, you can even order the print from your mobile phone. You can get a photo book of your favorite holiday or a special event within days. How cool is that?
Thanks to sophisticated software and digital printing technologies, print production is no longer a black art. Production processes are behind the scenes, and the clever science is the stuff you don’t need to see or get involved in, because you don’t need to.
The mechanics of print are solved in hardware and software innovations operating in tandem with powerful new imaging techniques. Today’s print production is slick, automated, affordable and readily accessible to all of us.
If the shoe fits …
Just as you don’t much care about how a shoe is made, you don’t need to know the grubby details of how print happens. As long as the shoe fits and does the job, that’s all that matters, and so it is with print. All you need to know is that you can get it,you can afford it and you can enjoy it.
If you want a printed physical version of what’s in your head, you only need to care about who’s got the right equipment, how much that print service provider will charge you per copy or item and how you do what you have to do to do to make sure the production process is flawless.
Wild format possibilities
Canvases Printed As One Offs Are A Cheap And Convenient Way To Brighten Up Your Spaces. Holiday Views, Family Pictures, Your Pets, Your Friends, Your Enemies On A Dartboard Perhaps, Whatever Takes Your Fancy
During this series we will explain what you need to know to create magical projects using digital printing technology. Most of what gets printed is still printed on paper, but printing on paper is a small part of the digital printing universe.
There are also exciting possibilities for printing on carton and board, on plastics and mesh, or canvas. You can use digital printing devices to print textiles such as polyesters, linen, cotton and even silk.