Bringing Print Back to Miami Beach

The graphic arts industry is moving to Miami—at least for the first few days of March—as the annual Graphics of the Americas Conference & Expo (GOA) opens its doors to attendees once again. Now in its 37th year, Graphics of the Americas is produced annually by Printing Association of Florida, Inc. gives PSPs the opportunity to get a first look of the new year at the latest products and services in printing and graphic arts technology.

More Than Just Products

While new products are one of the main draws of any trade show, GOA also offers a variety of free events and educational opportunities. George Ryan, GOA president, says, "You will be hard-pressed to find another conference and expo that offers as many myriad learning opportunities in such an exciting format—not to mention at no cost—as GOA. Each year we succeed in featuring the hottest trends and practical demonstrations so that attendees can see, first-hand, the immediate opportunities available to them to both grow and prosper in today's marketplace."

While FESPA kicked off an event in 2011 in the USA, there will not be a FESPA Americas exhibition in 2012 due to the proximity of the event to FESPA's global exhibition FESPA Digital 2012 in Barcelona. FESPA, however, is continuing to support the Graphics of the Americas exhibition in 2012 with educational content—including specific content on the show floor.

A sampling of show floor events at GOA 2012 include, but are not limited to:

The Expo Theater: Ten sessions are on the tap at the Expo Theater located directly on the show floor. Sessions geared toward the latest market trends are presented by executives from exhibiting companies at the show.

Direct-to-Garment Center: In the Direct-to-Garment Center, attendees get a first-hand look at digital garment decoration technologies. Attendees can scour the area for solutions that fit their needs—and to learn techniques, tips, tricks and trends to improve production accuracy and prevent errors.

Wide Format Print Shop Live!: A show favorite, visitors engage in this innovative and live, end-to-end workflow platform. Production managers are invited to bring real job files that are test-run on an array of digital technologies, software, and consumables, to reflect a live working environment right on the show floor. Observe the "how-to" area, hosted by Dr. Mark Bohan, Vice President, Technology and Research, Printing Industries of America; to discover the best way to employ technologies and optimize production efficiency, as well as to take note of a variety of innovative applications.

Vehicle Wrap Center: The Vehicle Wrap Center features live vehicle wrap demonstrations of vinyl installations by MUTOH and Arlon. Installers get firsthand tips, tricks and techniques to improve their skills, and graphic imagers can use this area to connect with qualified installers. Graphics are printed by the 64" ValueJet 1614 using Arlon's DPF 6000XRP, a 2-mil gloss white cast film with bubble releasing, tinted, repositionable, permanent pressure-sensitive adhesive.

Vehicle Wrap Cup: FESPA presents the vehicle wrap competition where the "wrap stars" of the Americas region will be pitted against each other and the clock to find the FESPA Wrap Cup Champion of the Americas.

Bonus Sessions

Each year, GOA organizes free Bonus Sessions that focus on technology trends having a positive impact on attendees' businesses. The following sessions address some of the foremost topics at the current time in the industry:

Increase Response Rates through Integrated Digital Print and Electronic Media

David Murphy, HP

Thursday, March 1 - 10:30 - 11:45 am

This presentation offers proof of how digital print—when strategically integrated with social media, email, and other electronic technologies—generates higher response rates and greater customer engagement than pure electronic channels can yield on their own.

Color Management

Heidelberg

Thursday, March 1 - 2:00 - 3:15 pm

In a fast-paced, one and a half-hour Q&A format, Heidelberg experts answer questions about how to reduce makeready times; how to save labor and material costs with existing equipment; how to determine actual production costs for specific customers; and information about G7 certification.

Maximizing Efficiencies through Automation

Steve Miller, Kodak

Friday, March 2 - 2:00 - 3:15 pm

The challenges in today's marketplace require true automation and integration to separate best-in-class print service providers from their competition. Whether you are a package printer, or specialize in publishing or commercial print, success lies on investments being utilized to their fullest potential. By automating and integrating business production workflow systems, printers will drive costs out of their workflow systems through increased visibility, streamlined efficiencies, reduction of manual touch points and minimizing human error.

Product Highlights

Of course, we can't forget about all the new products on the show floor.

Mutoh America, Inc. and Arlon Graphics (Booth 769) have teamed up for the fourth year in a row to provide car wrap printing and application demonstrations at GOA/FESPA Americas. Visit the Mutoh/Arlon booth to see the new four color Eco-solvent ValueJet 1638-64" printer. With its staggered dual-head design, the VJ 1638 prints up to a blazing 545 square feet per hour making it the perfect printer for a busy print shop printing car wraps, banners and other roll-to-roll materials. Mutoh will also showcase the ValueJet 1324-54" Eco-solvent printer and Kona 1400 plotting cutter for onsite decal making. All ValueJets are manufactured with Mutoh's Intelligent Interweave print technique (i²), virtually eliminating banding, and can be equipped with the SpectroVue VM-10 Spectrophotometer for ColorVerify on-board process control.

Caldera (Booth 1102) will demonstrate the new edition of its RIP software, Caldera V9, which harnesses the latest version of the Adobe print engine, APPE 2.5, to deliver additional productivity features and refinements. Enhanced color options, improved transparency handling and faster previewing join with practical additions to provide Caldera's world-wide user base with the broadest functionality available in this market. Operators can now double-click a job within Spooler to reopen it within the Print window, allowing them to verify parameters or resubmit it with modified settings. LiveSpooler, meanwhile, introduces a new XML exchange protocol which allows for the monitoring of offline devices within the print environment, thereby improving workflow management—especially for owners of Caldera's popular Flow+ package.

ImageOne Impact (Booth 685) will be presenting a several new products. Clear Grommets are now available for all digital printers and banner makers. Wrap Caps are wrappable hubcaps for vehicle wraps—your wheels turn but your hubcaps don't. The LCT Liner Cutting tool cuts only the liner and not your media. Wall Mount Banner brackets are now available in black and great for hanging banners from walls. Attendees can also pick up ImageOne Impact's new 2012 Catalog with 40+ pages of new products.

Color-Logic (Booth 1123) will show the versatility of its Process Metallic Color System by featuring actual printed samples produced using offset, flexography, digital, wide format, and other processes. Process experts will be available to discuss the advantages of the system for brand managers, graphic designers, and their printers.

Esko (Booth 647) will show its design to print to cut workflows for sign and display shops. i-cut Suite pre-production tools streamline the workflow for narrow format and large-format printers, from prepress to finished product. Components include i-cut Preflight, handling efficient preflighting and editing of incoming PDF files. i-cut Layout builds and edits sheet layouts, ensuring jobs make the optimum substrate use through nesting and tiling. i-cut Vision Pro ensures that die-less cutting contours match printed images perfectly. New i-cut Automate automates all these functions in a single workflow, with less operator intervention and fewer potential manual errors. Repetitive tasks are far less time-consuming through dynamic workflows that are easy to set up and operate. i-cut Automate can also be integrated with MIS, enabling automatic job creation.

Additionally, Esko will feature the Kongsberg i-XE10 is an efficient and versatile finishing solution for short-run production of articles for visual communication, labels, signs and displays. It is specifically designed for finishing small-format, prototype, sample and short-run digital printed materials. The Kongsberg i-XE10 opens opportunities for creative, new applications with irregular shapes or finishing structures, handling a maximum sheet size of 35x47 inches. By bringing finishing in house, printers save time and money.

Graphics One (Booth 577) will exhibit the first wallpaper printer with a specially formulated wallpaper ink designed and optimized for producing beautiful and high resolution wallpaper graphics and designs. GO's WallMax Printer is a 50-inch high performance eight-color printer for wallpaper printing and for the wallpaper home decoration and wall advertising markets. The WallMax can print on virtually any off-the-shelf wallpaper using the specially formulated GO WallMax ink. The WallMax ink is a high color saturation water-based ink that produces exceptional long lasting and vibrant color images. There is no longer a need to use specially coated wallpaper or to use ink which is environmentally damaging. Priced at $12,995, the GO WallMax printer and ink is perfect for imaging virtually any type of off-the-shelf wallpaper.

In addition, Graphics One will also exhibit the OKI proColor 920WT and the GO UNO printer. The proColor 920WT is a powerful and ultra high speed LED printer using a new revolutionary white toner, while the GO UNO is a LED printer that uses CMYK high definition toners for transferring high quality images onto light, dark and colored apparel.

Hewlett-Packard (Booth 401) will exhibit HP's newest Latex Ink solution, the 61-inch HP Designjet L26500 Printer. Capable of handling a broader range of indoor and outdoor signage applications with better durability than eco-solvent inks, the printer features new HP 792 Latex Designjet Ink, providing a consistent performance across a variety of substrates. HP showcases its UV-curable solution, the 64-inch HP Scitex FB500 Industrial Printer, which prints on virtually any rigid and flexible media. Also on display are HP's digital press solutions, including the HP Indigo ws4500 Digital Press, offering a resolution up to 1624 dpi and a print size of up to 12.13x17.72 inches. The seven-color, web-fed labels and packaging press uses HP ElectroInk liquid ink and is one of the world's most popular solutions for label and packaging printing. For the commercial printing market, HP's booth with also feature the HP Indigo R5000 Digital Press, which offers proven, high-quality HP Indigo imaging at an economical cost. The press also supports up to seven colors and features HP DreamColor Technologies for reliable color matching and color management.

The Orbus Exhibit & Display Group (Booth 1107) has announced the addition of 40+ new and improved products to its extensive product line. New products include an illuminated Hopup tension fabric display, which comes with long-lasting LED lights, helping to make any graphic pop and command attention. Backlit Hopup kits are available in two different sizes and come with frame, graphics, LED lights and case. Orbus also added over 20 new & improved retractable banner stands to its extensive line. New stands include: Blade Lite series, Mosquito series, Freedom and Start. Improved banner stands with enhanced components and new design features include: Imagine, Advance, Barracuda, Excalibur and Orient. Four new extrusion-based multimedia kiosks, which hold LCDs and Monitors in a variety of sizes, were introduced to Orbus’ line of Linear Kiosks. Orbus also revamped its Linear line of Table Top, and 10-foot and 20-foot exhibit kits. Linear Table Top, Standard and Pro exhibit kits are extrusion-based exhibits that feature fabric center graphics and are easier than ever to assemble.

Contex (Booth 1024) will show the new HD ULTRA, the world’s fastest wide-format scanner as well as the lightweight and efficient SD 3600.  If you want a wide-format scanning solution for: easy walk up scan, copy, and email;  efficient and productive scan and archiving  or advance scanning production and printing of wide-format document and drawings of all types and thicknesses, a Contex wide-format scanning solution will deliver the image quality, speed, versatility and reliability you need to make a difference.

MultiCam (Booth 201) will demonstrate the MultiCam Graph-X-Cutter, a high-speed digital finishing system with enhanced knife-cutting performance and utility. This configurable CNC solution combines digital registration, heavy-duty tangential knife cutting and high-speed routing. With a maximum cutting speed of 1000 IPM, the wide-format sheet-fed platform delivers 2100 IPM maximum rapid traverse. The optional MultiVision digital registration hardware/software combination recognizes media registration marks visually, compensating for skew and image drift automatically for quick, accurate alignment.

For mechanized knife cutting, creasing and perforating, configure up to two independent tangential knives or one knife and one router. EZ Knife supports tangential drag, oscillating and ultrasonic cutting. Blade types include rotary, spear point, utility, kiss cut and more. It is available in 48x48-inch to 79x120-inch table sizes.