Location, Location, Location

Imagine walking into an elevator, casually looking down, and noticing that the floor is missing, below you a fiery inferno. Your initial reaction is to jump back out, perhaps uttering an expletive of some kind. Upon closer examination, you discover that you’re not in an Irwin Allen movie; it’s only a realistic 3D graphic applied to the floor of a perfectly safe and normal elevator.

“Customers are being more and more creative with their content,” said Tammi Johnson, Business Development Manager, 3M Commercial Solutions. The elevator inferno example had been sent by a customer of 3M’s floor graphics substrates. “Some of these 3D programs are allowing them to create these different levels of effects.” Other examples include what looks like a spilled bottle of soda, or even fleas jumping off a lolling dog.

Floor graphics have evolved—like virtually every other print application—from long-run analog processes to shorter-run digital production. “Floor graphics started out very standard, you go to a 27 x 38 sheet that you probably print offset for a national campaign, and print 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 sheets and they go in Walmarts all around the country,” said Dennis Brunnett, Product Manager, FLEXcon. FLEXcon is a converter of substrates for floor, wall, window, and many other types of graphics. “The shift has been more towards regional or local graphics. That brings the print job volumes down, and it changes the equipment, so instead of doing offset or screen, they’re more wide-format inkjet.”

Today’s floor graphics are printed using any of the major inkjet printing methods, from solvent and eco-solvent, to UV, to latex. When producing floor graphics, it’s important to know exactly what type of surface the graphic is going on, be it concrete, to tile—or tile with grout lines, be they small or large—or textured surfaces. Different floor graphics films are more or less compatible with different surfaces. Floor graphics that don’t adhere properly are not just an aesthetic problem, they’re also a safety hazard.

“We manufacture two types of film [for floor graphics], a cast film and a calender film,” said Joey Heiob, Technical Specialist, Avery Dennison Graphics Solutions. “Calender film is designed for smooth surfaces only, like a smooth type of concrete, or sometimes you’ll see them as promotions on basketball courts. Cast films are for a tile floor that has grout lines, or any kind of textured or pebbled surface.”

It is also for safety reasons that all floor graphics need to be installed in two processes: the graphic itself, and an overlaminate that both protects the graphic from damage from foot traffic and protects pedestrians from slipping.

Any reputable supplier of substrates for floor graphics tests their materials for slip resistance using, typically, Underwriters Laboratories’ UL 410 standard. (And, in fact, it is a legal liability if they don’t.) It’s a standard that measures the coefficient of friction of a graphic and compares it to a leather strip that simulates a shoe. It’s also important to not test just the overlaminate in isolation, but the combination of graphic and overlaminate. “FLEXcon has four different overlaminates for floors,” said Brunnett. “So if you have a single base film, you would have to do four different tests because the slip surface is impacted by the surface its laminated to. All floor graphics should be sold, if they’re using the 410 method, for the entire construction not just the actual overlaminate.” (There is a second test standard developed by ASTM, ASTM-D2047, which can be used in addition to or instead of UL 410.)

Substrate suppliers have been keeping up with new wide-format printing technologies—the growth of LED-cured UV inks, which cure under lamps that generate much less heat than traditional UV, means that thinner plastic films can be used without melting, warping, discoloring, or getting otherwise damaged during printing.

But the real action has been on the content and the placement of floor graphics. “People are being more and more creative with location and with content,” said Johnson. “They’re trying to find unique spaces to meet their objectives.”

Indeed, there is no shortage of surfaces to which floor graphics can be and are applied—even carpets. Obviously not deep-pile shag carpeting, but commercial grade carpeting such as you find at trade shows or other events have been increasingly festooned with graphics. However, you can’t always use the same material you would use on a rigid floor.

“One of the issues I see with a lot of them is that the overlaminate is so thin you could see everybody’s heel marks in it,” said Brunnett. “You spent all that money on a two- or three-day promotion, but instead of making your brand look good, it ends up hurting your brand, in my opinion. Choosing the right carpet graphic, considering how soft the surface is, makes a huge impact.”

Carpet graphics are also not intended for the long term. “Carpet applications are typically a very very short-term application the because the carpet is almost always impossible to get 100 percent clean,” said Heiob. “So your adhesive can contaminate it very easily and pull up very easily from people walking over it and catching an edge of it.”

Actually, floor graphics in general tend to have short lifespans—on the order of 180 days or so. “The primary reason is how long the adhesive can handle pedestrian traffic,” said Brunnett. “It has to do with taking it off while the adhesive still performs the way it should.”

There have been some new cases in which floor graphics are used not necessarily for promotion, but as a kind of interior décor. This is known as “full-coverage” floor graphics. One Avery Dennison customer used the company’s cast film to print a “wood” floor that was then applied to the floor of a TV studio. Floor applications can also be used to set apart different sections of a store like Sears, such as the fishing equipment aisle. “They used a full-coverage floor graphic so it covered every bit of the aisle and the end of the aisle,” said Brunnett. “It looked like it was painted on the floor to look like a riverbed. Now that area feels like it’s one section of the store immersing the customer in what they’re looking for.” Full-coverage floor graphics can also be tiled, which means that if one particular area gets scuffed or damaged, only one small tile needs to be reprinted and replaced, rather than the whole graphic.

Still, printed floor graphics are not likely to be used for long-term interior décor any time soon. “Depending on the level of traffic that is going to be at a location, to replicate a hardwood floor would still be more of a temporary thing,” said Johnson.

Floor graphic placement has also become more strategic, and indeed multiple variations of the same graphic can be used in different places within, say, a retail environment, starting at the front door, and then next to the product you specifically want to promote. “You catch them when they come in, drive them to a location in the store, and then influence that purchase right at the spot,” said Johnson. “You have to think about what your objective is.”

Floor graphics are also becoming part of multichannel marketing campaigns. “Because of all the increase in digital marketing, people are starting to use floor graphics to partner with that,” said Johnson. “Maybe you’re using your social media to draw awareness to something, and then when you’re on-site you use a floor graphic or other type of application to really bring that in and drive more consistency.”

Not unexpectedly, QR codes are now found on floor graphics and it’s not difficult to imagine a time when floor graphics will have Augmented Reality embedded in them. Given how many people these days walk through public locations staring at their phones, it’s a logical development.

Effective—and safe—floor graphics are certainly within everyone’s reach, with a few basic best practices. “Make sure it works well for everybody,” said Johnson. “Make sure your messaging is concise, think about where you’re going to place it, and make sure you have good installation.”

“Indemnification,” advised Brunnett. “Some [providers] offer them, some don’t. I would suggest anyone looking into floor graphics look into what an indemnification is and how it can protect their company as well as their customer.”