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Making an exhibition of yourself
Pop-up displays are certainly not a new phenomenon and have had their place in the industry for many years mostly as a temporary solution seen widely at exhibitions. New digital technology means they are becoming increasingly sophisticated and able to cater for a variety of installations.
One such example was launched at Sign and Digital UK this year and comes from Tecna UK. Working with Tecna Display, the company has developed a versatile fabric display system, enabling users to capitalise on the advances in fabric printing.
The framework is strong enough to carry plasma screens and heavy displays, yet Tecna claims it can be built quickly and packed away with compact storage. The t3fabframe channel uses the same patented connector and twist-lock tube location method as the t3airframe, providing compatibility across all t3 structures. It also enables the fabric panels to be fitted easily to create 3D framework structures with either non-illuminated panels or back-lit illumination for cost effective lightboxes.
Exhibitions, retail applications and conference sets are still the primary use for the new t3 system, but what really makes it stand out is the T3airframe. This opens up a myriad of fabric display opportunities including towers, plinths, curved walls, beams, arches, counters and bars with seamless graphics limited only by print size.
The benefit here is that with customers looking to make their mark at exhibitions on an increasingly smaller budget, this system opens up a number of opportunities which would previously have been unheard of from a pop-up display. The T3 Fabkit holds fabric tight for all-round versatility, opening up new opportunities in the form of cheaper, more portable, more flexible and more dynamic and eye-catching solutions, taking advantage of the increasingly lower costs of printing on fabric.
Roll up, roll up
Another name to look out for in exhibition systems is Seal Graphics - particularly its new Print Shield Crystal Lite film, which should find popularity among producers of roll-up, pop-up and banner displays.
This 140 micron laminate is a lightweight, textured polypropylene film, used with a water-based adhesive, said to produce uniform, eye-catching display panels. PS Crystal Lite can reduce costs and is ideal when the graphics application requires a thinner construction or less rigidity.
Developed using a polypropylene-face film, PS Crystal Lite is designed to offer a stable alternative to PVC films, resulting in less shrinkage. It is produced to industry standard sizes, including 914 and 1067mm widths, as well as 880 and 1040mm to match Seal Graphics' finishing materials.
Once again the focus is on cost effective, quality production, which is becoming an essential part of the digital industry.
Cutting waste
Pop-up displays are not just popular in the exhibition sector. They are also finding their place in the point of purchase (POP) market as a cost effective solution which works well with more traditional POP material. The production of POP and permanent in-store product displays is typically seen as an industry which needs a fast and highly reliable solution for short run production and the recently launched Kongsberg XP series of digital cutting tables from EskoArtwork fits the bill perfectly.
Positioned as true production machines, the three models in the Kongsberg XP series are designed specifically to operate continuously in a 24/7 production environment.
EskoArtwork CAM product manager, Tom Erik Naess, said: "With these new tables, production capacity can be increased up to twice that which is available on any machine currently on the market. Also, the Kongsberg XP is specially designed to handle the combination of corrugated board and other rigid materials used for packaging, POP products and product displays."
In addition to the XP series, and further enhancing their POP offering, EskoArtwork also offers SignUp Auto, a fully-automatic nesting solution for sign and display companies, which allows manufacturers to utilise substrates efficiently, eliminating costly operator time in desktop publishing packages, with links to digital storefront systems.
EskoArtwork director platforms software, Geert De Proost, explained: "The automation in SignUp Auto uses SignUp's intelligent nesting and metadata such as material and number of copies to achieve error free, lights out production. Just as important for the bottom line, SignUp Auto provides optimised material usage and cost efficiencies."
In addition, SignUp Auto understands and processes XML and JDF files as input, which makes it ideal as a receiver of storefront input for Web-to-print. Along with nesting and tiling, SignUp Auto offers complete workflow automation, allowing an operation to accept a fast growing number of very short run jobs to deliver to an increasing number of digital presses.
And finally
Pop-up displays are proving their worth by providing a cost effective solution for traditional exhibition and display markets. By ensuring that they also work well with other forms of display, such as point of purchase material, the market continues to open up.
By offering a pop-up solution which can accommodate plasma screens and heavy displays for example, these systems instantly become an option in retail environments. Furthermore, because they have become more sophisticated, they work well with the traditional solutions such as those from EskoArtwork. The key to sustaining this industry is by working together to offer customers a solution which meets their needs now and in the future.
