Custom graphic overlays play an important role in our everyday lives.
Commonplace across a wide variety of sectors, they are often overlooked. Without them however, we’d be quite lost.
Serving as covers for machinery, they do so much more than simply protect the equipment they adorn. Indeed many are designed to help us operate those same items.
Catering, medical, fire detection, military, audio and visual equipment instrumentation are all industries that are reliant in some way on custom overlays of this kind.
When it comes to the creation of these materials, screen printing was long deemed the best – and perhaps only – way to get the job done. This is no longer the case.
That’s because digital print now offers an alternative method, with equally good results. It’s the latest example of a new print trend modernising age-old techniques.
The benefits of printing custom overlays digitally are plain to see, particularly for the likes of Evans Graphics, who are one of the first print providers to adopt the method. Here are eight advantages we’ve identified…
1 Firstly it lends itself to low volume print runs, often very expensive but in this case less of a financial burden. Prototypes are also easier to produce, with big time savings meaning printers are more inclined to offer these to potential clients.
2 Elsewhere complex designs with lots of different colour options are easier to accommodate digitally. Replicating the same output via screen printing is possible but far more involved and by extension time consuming. The likes of repro and screen stencils mean a fair amount of preparatory work goes into every job. This typically leads to costs passed on to the consumer.
3 With our digital process we can also offer a unique print offering we call high ink build. This is where are able to print on the face side of the Fusion graphic, to create a raised print which can be used to highlight particular text or just enhance a logo.
4 When it comes to application, customers can rest assured their digitally printed custom overlays are durable. Indeed they make use of a chemical resistant material, meaning they are hard wearing and resistant to everyday wear and tear. This is particularly important when deployed in the likes of the security and marine industries, where longevity is required.
5 Furthermore our Fusion graphics are digitally printed using a hard-coated Antimicrobial polyester. Needless to say, this is a massive plus when creating a graphics for the medical sector.
6 Combined with our digital print process and the hard-coated polyester offering we can also create rim, pillow or domed embossed areas. Our inks and materials have been proven and independently tested at three million flexes and examined using an eye loupe.
7 Finally - and perhaps most significantly - digitally printed custom graphic overlays can be produced in far quicker time. Less man hours (unavoidable when it comes to screen print setup) has a knock-on effect financially for customers. The digital approach is a more cost-effective one.
Still a relatively new process, digitally printing fusion graphic overlays is very much the future. It has many benefits for printer and designer alike and should help both deliver these much-needed products in quicker time and to a higher standard than ever before.
If it’s versatility you crave, there is only one option.
To learn more about fusion graphic overlays and both screen and digital print, click here.
