Big Picture - June/July 2018 - 17

expanded-gamut, solvent printing was coming onto the scene.
UV-cured printing was not yet commercially available.
(Seriously, how did we live without UV-cured printing?)

come through our industry's supply chain, and has some
performance advantages.

2018

Luckily, the same shows also include most of the printer
manufacturers. In 2007, we discovered a manufacturer that
had a printer with the ability to print white/color/white to
glass. That became a unicorn for us for at least three years.
Spend time at the manufacturers' booths and try to talk to
engineers, as well as sales people.
But my best advice - or what has worked the best for us
- is being open to taking sales calls for media and equipment. I try to sit in on each meeting and end with one
request: Please call me directly any time you come across
anything new that you believe is revolutionary. I give them
my personal cell phone number. This has yielded several
unicorns over the decades and certainly has helped us come
to market sooner with a number of evolutionary and
revolutionary products.
Just like the mythical creature it's named for, a wideformat unicorn isn't going to magically walk onto your shop
floor. Obtaining a totally unique product or application takes
time, persistence, a willingness to try new things, and a fair
amount of luck. But, having a unicorn up your sleeve is a
surefire way to expand your shop's market share and solidify
your reputation as a cutting-edge print provider. Take some
time to start hunting for your shop's unicorn today.

This is today. Is there anything truly new and revolutionary in
the world of large- and grand-format digital printing? Only if
you limit the conversation to better, faster, cheaper (BFC). A
great example of BFC is single-pass printing. The end product
isn't fundamentally different, it's just, you know, BFC.
Those of you who have read my most recent columns or
witnessed me speak at WFX: Wide-Format Exchange will
know that we've adopted 3D print technologies. This was the
direct result of our search for the next unicorn. I won't spend
more than a paragraph on this. But, the two most promising
3D products this transition has yielded are 3D-printed channel
letters and 3D-printed SEG frames of any shape and size. I
will address the overlap between 3D and large- and grandformat 2D printing in a future column, so stay tuned.
Because we plan to maintain our core digital printing
capability, and in keeping with the title of this column, we will
transition from products that have become commoditized and
focus on products that are more unique. For now, these
include 3-meter-wide carpet, one dye sublimated nonwoven,
and a low-pile carpet printed with latex. Another is largeformat dye sublimation to rigid materials like wood and metal.
Our goal is to discover a product that is either new or unique
enough to limit our competition in the marketplace. The
challenge is: Where do we look for this next big thing?

FROM EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURERS

FROM OUR CUSTOMER
In the past, some of our best product ideas have come from
asking customers what they want or need but can't fi nd.
Recently I got a phone call from a long-time client. He
said he had been thinking about developing a product for
about three or four months, and he wanted to team up with
someone he trusted. The good news is I think his idea is a
winner and it's within our ability to develop. Best of all, there
doesn't seem to be any prior art, meaning the product, if
created, can be protected. If you are receptive, sometimes
the unicorn comes to you.
FROM THE MEDIA SUPPLIER OR MANUFACTURER
Two tips on this. Make an effort to attend SGIA, ISA, FESPA,
and drupa as often as possible. Walk the floor and try to stop
by every media company to see what's new. You will be
amazed at some of the gems you will fi nd.
Offer to beta test materials for manufacturers - this gives
you access to products before they are commercially available. We were selected to be the beta site for a manufacturer
last year, and in the next two months we'll receive a beta
machine from another manufacturer. We have done this quite
a few times in over two decades. Beta testing advanced
technologies gives you a significant head start to producing
potential unicorns.
Source a print material outside the industry. We have a
printable flooring product we buy from the flooring industry.
It's significantly less expensive than similar products that

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