Big Picture - June/July 2017 - 9

upfront global edition
Digital Print Week Recap
Two hundred-plus print shops, manufacturers, brand owners and specialists, and converters in the packaging and textile industries attended the
Digital Print for Packaging and Digital Textile Printing conferences in early
June in Decatur, Georgia, to talk digital print drivers, applications, and
technologies in the growing market.
Sean Smyth, Smithers Pira, kicked off the two-day Digital Print for
Packaging event by telling the audience that digital packaging is growing, and
corrugated packaging is exploding due to the technologies available today.
"Reliability and image quality techniques in single-pass inkjet are now a given
after drupa," he said. And economic short runs, security, and emotional
engagement are the biggest drivers for digital print for packaging today.

DRUPA 2020
EXPLORES PRINT
INNOVATION
Drupa has released details for its 2020 trade fair taking
place in Düsseldorf, Germany, June 16-26. The show
will focus on technological innovations in the print
industry, emphasizing packaging production, functional
printing, 3D printing, and industrial printing through
forums and events.
Packaging highlights include the "Touchpoint
Packaging" forum, covering the production chain from
start to fi nish, and the "Amazing, Inspiring, Exciting, and
Unexpected" interactive brainstorming session with
packaging case studies and applications. Other topics
visitors can expect to see addressed include the
growing customization trend, fi nishing, intelligent
packaging, artificial intelligence, robotics, and more.

'THE BRAND IMPERATIVE'
In one of the most talked-about panels at the show, Tom Cooper, R+D
manager, Digital Printing, Westrock, moderated the digital print debate for
brands with Fran Biderman-Gross, CEO and president, Advantages; David
France, packaging research fellow, ConAgra Foods; and Todd Fayne,
manager, Global Packaging Laboratory, PepsiCo.

FASHION, FINE ART,
AND FAME

Top takeaways from the diﬀering panel members:
"Digital print allows for creating a custom experience in the short run for a
wide variety of people. It's all about personalization. There's excitement with
digital print. You need to change your mindset and be open to it. ... Engage
your customers and start with why: Measure the data and deliver ROI."
- Biderman-Gross
"We're acquiring smaller brands that grew because they were willing to
take a risk with digital print. ... It comes down to speed and square inches
when considering moving into digital print for packaging." - France
"We don't need to be noticed. We dominate the shelf. We're not going to
take the risk in the R+D packaging sector. ... Momentum and getting our
internal people to buy in is a big issue." - Fayne

DIGITAL TEXTILE PRINTING
The last two days of the digital print-focused week centered on the movement
toward digital textile printing, from fast fashion to tradeshow banners. Discussed
growth drivers for the market include: digital short-run economics, design
flexibility, customization, color consistency, and a streamlined design process.

Top quotes:

BIGPICTURE.NET

"The new wave is upcycling. You take your textile product to a company
that turns it into something new and usable." - Marci Kinter, VP, government
and business information, SGIA
"The fastest growing applications in the market today are textiles
for garment, textiles for interior décor, and packaging." - Mark Abramson,
CEO, PrintForm, quoting FESPA
"Soft signage is a differentiator. It's a new application and product offering,
but only one in 15 digital graphic printers are in the soft signage market."
- Mike Wozny, senior product manager, EFI

Fashion label Alice + Olivia debuted its Basquiat X collection
at a launch party in New York last November. Proceeds from
the collection, which is based on the work of late neo-impressionist artist Jean-Michael Basquiat, benefit the Council of
Fashion Designers of America, an initiative supporting young
talent in the field.
Guests included Pierce Brosnan, Nicky Hilton, and other
celebrities. To give the event that upscale touch, Instinct
Graphics (www.instinct-graphics.com) was called in to
produce 555 square feet of wall décor on its Epson SureColor
S80600 printer. The shop used four products from the Avery
Wall Film collection: MPI 2611 Wall Film, Pure Canvas,
Crushed Stone, and Natural Stucco.

http://www.BIGPICTURE.NET http://www.instinct-graphics.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Big Picture - June/July 2017