5 Things You Should Know About Our Dig­i­tal Print Capabilities

1. We Can Print Just About Anything

Our print-on-pan­el print­ers print direct­ly to a sub­strate, such as acrylic. Acrylic is the most fre­quent­ly used mate­r­i­al, but we’ve also print­ed on a vari­ety of oth­er mate­ri­als such as reclaimed barn wood, ceil­ing tiles, glass, and pvc. Oppor­tu­ni­ties to get cre­ative and push the bound­aries of what has been done vs what can be done is what keeps the Dig­i­tal Print depart­ment on the cut­ting edge.

The roll-fed print­er typ­i­cal­ly prints on vinyl. White vinyl is the most pop­u­lar option, but we also print on clear, tem­po­rary, and per­fo­rat­ed vinyl. We have a cool new mate­r­i­al that can be installed over rough tex­ture, such as brick or cement. Many times, clients are look­ing for a cer­tain look that we can achieve through sourc­ing the right mate­r­i­al and per­fect­ing the design.

2. We are Col­or Match Experts

Our dig­i­tal graph­ic tech­ni­cian, Caitlin Neko­la, has gone through sev­er­al inten­sive train­ing pro­grams for our large-scale Mima­ki print­ers. Dur­ing this deep dive into the details of main­tain­ing and oper­at­ing the print­ers she honed her skill for lin­ing up each print with per­fec­tion. ​“Prop­er align­ment is so impor­tant because if one thing is off, it can mess up the entire print. Imag­ine that the dot tra­jec­to­ry on the print­er is like an air­plane fly­ing over­head and try­ing to place a sin­gle drop of water in a spe­cif­ic spot.” Luck­i­ly for Lat­i­tude, Caitlin is an ace pilot.

She also prides her­self on her abil­i­ty to col­or match with indus­try-beat­ing accu­ra­cy. Delta E is a met­ric for under­stand­ing how the human eye per­ceives col­or dif­fer­ence. The high­er the Delta E num­ber, the fur­ther apart the col­ors are from one anoth­er. A rate of Delta E 5 or less is the indus­try stan­dard for col­or match­ing. Caitlin and the entire Dig­i­tal Print Depart­ment use a Mea­sure­Col­or col­or-mea­sur­ing device to math­e­mat­i­cal­ly pin­point the col­or they are try­ing to match. Then they cal­i­brate the print­ers accord­ing­ly to achieve a Delta E 3 or less.

3. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is Critical

Ryan Rudd (Vinyl/​Digital Print Spe­cial­ist) is the pri­ma­ry liai­son between the Dig­i­tal Print Depart­ment and Sales, Design, Project Man­age­ment and Pro­duc­tion. ​“Most of the graph­ics we deal with are part of a larg­er scope of work. I’m in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with pro­duc­tion, project man­agers, install coor­di­na­tors, to ensure every item is account­ed for and dead­lines are met.” Rudd says.

The Dig­i­tal Print team is also a resource dur­ing the sales and design por­tion of the process. ​“We’re often answer­ing ques­tions on what’s pos­si­ble and how we could make an idea a real­i­ty,” Neko­la says.

4. We Have Design­ers On Staff

If you (or your design­ers) have been over­whelmed by research­ing the dif­fer­ence between bitmap and vec­tor files or what scale you need to use to design your large-scale print, don’t wor­ry. Our dig­i­tal print team works direct­ly with an expert team of graph­ic design­ers who deal with the ins and outs of over­sized dig­i­tal graph­ics every day. They can pro­vide detailed guide­lines that suit your project or design the files for you. Lat­i­tude is tru­ly a one-stop shop. Our teams can design, pro­duce, and install any dig­i­tal graph­ic project.

5. The Pos­si­bil­i­ties are Endless

“Our only lim­i­ta­tion is our own cre­ativ­i­ty,” Neko­la says. ​“There’s so much poten­tial with dig­i­tal graph­ics. What’s dif­fi­cult to achieve with tra­di­tion­al sig­nage is pos­si­ble with dig­i­tal prints. Clients can let their imag­i­na­tions go crazy and with our full col­or image options, the pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less.”

“One of the most reward­ing parts of our job is being able to see the end results,” Rudd says. ​“We breathe life into blank walls, and it’s real­ly cool to see it all come togeth­er”.