Graphics producers have many application choices when it comes to serving the retail space, and many of those choices require installation. Each type of job must be done right. Further, the installation professional may be the only in-person contact that takes place between graphics producer and retailer.
Tips and Tools
While purchasing new equipment is certainly exciting, with the visions of all the new applications it will open up for your shop, you can’t simply “buy it and they will come.” Planning for the future and how to expand the business is critical for ensuring long-term success.
Now is the time to invest in wide-format technology and services — an opportunity largely driven by changes in how we communicate graphically using the environment around us.
Designers are not used to working directly with manufacturers and vice versa. The desire is there though, and the opportunity to work together to customize projects with more detail and less waste is excellent. Printers and interior designers just need to learn how to work together.
As more and more wide-format printers expand their range of offerings into textiles, they may find themselves hearing a lot of new textile terminology. While you don't need to know everything about a fabric to print on it, it helps to have a basic understanding of the language of textiles.
Whether you call it a disaster plan, a contingency plan, a strategic plan, or even just a scenario plan, the goal is the same: thinking through potential problems and coming up with possible solutions long before you ever need them.