Full soft signage solution

Sponsored by JK Group and MS Printing Solutions

Soft signage allows brands to visually convey messages, ideas and values by using designs that build connections between people and businesses. Thus, building trust and credibility. To deliver these goals successfully, quality, productivity, ease of use and reliability are mandatory. Fortunately, these qualities are the core of JK Group and MS Printing Solutions’ latest solution. The soft signage solution is dye-sub digital transfer printing technology which makes high-impact colours real and tangible, multiplying designers' creative-thinking and boosting the brand's experience.

The solution comprises MS Printing Solutions’ JP4 EVO 3.2 scanning machine – the ideal choice to print paper and non-elastic fabric. The technology’s ergonomics have been fully redesigned, making access and handling easier as well as improving the internal check and control procedures during the working stage. The machine’s high precision, productivity and flexibility make it the ideal solution for soft signage, paired with JK Group’s KIIAN DIGITAL K-ONE – a digital sublimation ink for transfer printing. This dye-sub ink is known for its colour consistency, fast drying times, runnability and printability. All of which are indispensable features matching market needs.

By combining the JP4 EVO 3.2 and K-One, MS Printing Solutions and JK Group have created a solution that further enhances their ability to deliver exceptional results to their soft signage customers, while also leveraging the technology as part of their fast-growing offering. Thus, making a strategic move towards expanding their offer to valued customers.

JP4 EVO 3.2 - The compact

MS Printing Solutions branded printer is highly precise. The outstanding output quality is due to a combination of technology and precision: in soft signage, it is these details that make the difference. Due to the machine’s high precision media advancement and a firmly stable positioning control, it assures high-quality printing outputs by responding to brand's needs to have images perfectly matching with the original image.

The machine is equipped with eight industrial 600 DPI in-line printing heads able to scale up to eight colour configurations to deliver outstanding prints, bright colours and detail accuracy and a mirrored four-color process. This setup is crucial if print houses need to work at one pass: whatever the direction of the print, the same result will always be achieved. With the eight print heads in line, print service providers can expand their colour gamut and get brighter colours – satisfying the needs of the soft signage industry.

The JP4 EVO 3.2 prints up to 424 sqm/h, assuring high volume results and maintaining top tier printing results and printing speed.

What’s more, the machine’s new ergonomic casings and design assures the best positioning of the printer’s new electronic and mechanical components making it durable with very limited maintenance. Its well thought out ergonomics guarantees an effortless access to the machine’s back in order to enter and exit the roll with ease.

KIIAN DIGITAL K-ONE

Branded by JK Group, the KIIAN DIGITIAL K-ONE is a series of dye-sublimation inks for transfer printing available in 14 different colours. The inks assure astonishing vibrant colours and detail accuracy – both mandatory requirements in the soft signage market. K-ONE ink ensures first-class image quality and unparalleled colour consistency, which is a crucial aspect of brand recognition. Ink choice is among the most critical decisions to make when needing to assure repeatability and no colour variation. The K-ONE ink series offers uncompromised quality due to its advanced process monitoring system (more than 20 different quality process controls are performed) and the forefront plant in terms of both automation and structural design. As a result of its bespoke waveform JK Group has achieved a perfect interaction between ink and machine, which consents the utmost control of the droplet jetting at the maximum printing speed. KIIAN DIGITAL K-ONE is an ideal match to JP4 EVO 3.2 for the soft signage printing industry.

KIIAN DIGITAL K-ONE achieved EcoPassport certification (certificate number 17EP00002) and thus the ZDHC MRSL 3.1 Conformity Level 3. This qualifies it for the Chemicals to Zero-Progressive (CtZ-P) – a ZDHC Programme to drive better chemistry in chemical formulations, giving assurance of reduced risks to the AFIRM RSL in end products, improving confidence to brands that products delivered are safe.

JK Group says it is doing its part to avoid the risk of jeopardising next generations’ right to have a decent future. “We, as huge players in the market, pay attention to the new industrial paradigm made up of awareness in choosing reliable and trustworthy partners; compliance with the most restrictive international regulations; directive and most respected textile standards and optimisation of the necessary water and energy consumptions,” explains the brand. Both MS Printing Solutions and JK Group adopt practices such as the removal of plastic bottles from their headquarters and the creation of Printland, its Company Forest, by working with Treedom – the first platform in the world that allows you to plant a tree from a distance and follow the story of the project online.

Software

Easy and intuitive, the solution’s new software integrates calibration and printing software, offering perfect colour management during the design preparation process. The calibration software has been engineered to make the entire calibration procedure easy and intuitive; it works on balancing the main variables such as inks, media substrates and print heads.

Solution

Overall, the soft signage solution features technologies created specifically for this segment’s applications: flags and banners, indoor graphics, trade show displays, outdoor advertising and POP/POS displays. However, at the same time it relies on MS Printing Solutions and JK Group’s numerous in-house competencies built over the years while working in the textile industry and in the sublimation market. JK Group has been developing digital inks since the 1990s and has been a reference point from that moment on. The new and stronger synergies with MS Printing Solutions allowed the development of new solutions for the sublimation market. The system enhances traditional MS Printing Solutions and JK Group qualities such as reliability, quality, productivity, ease of use and desire to innovate sustainably.

Matteo Forte, product marketing manager at MS Printing Solutions and JK Group, says: “We developed a highly versatile and reliable system that is suitable for numerous soft signage application and offers considerable colour consistency and repeatability. These are two key elements in a market such as this, characterised by an on-demand-like request. This has been made possible thanks to the high-quality production standard, the controls over the inks and obviously by the non-stop work and research from our research and development department.”

With the introduction of the new soft signage solution, MS Printing Solutions and JK Group enter a promising sector of the print industry. In fact, the global printed signage market is growing and is expected to reach a revenue holding of US$47.8bn by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 2% during the forecasted period (2022-2030). Asia was the largest regional market for printed signage in 2023 with a share of global value (constant 2021 prices) of more than 38%. North America and Western Europe follow, with North America having a share of over 28% in value, while Western Europe registered shares of 19% in value^[1]. In terms of output, soft signage accounted for 442.3bn sqm of printed textiles in 2022, according to WTiN Digital Textiles. This total was 14% of all printed textile productivity, WTiN Digital Textiles states.

Davide Dragoni, Ink Product development manager, JK Group, says: “From the knowhow and open-mindedness of MS Printing Solutions and JK Group we have been able to develop a unique system which is capable to give extraordinary results in a market segment that we haven’t yet fully explored. The market is evolving and so are we.”

Printing solutions from JK Group and MS Printing Solutions are designed to respond to the customers’ urgent need of a sustainable textile production chain. The brands do this by offering: Green Label by ACIMIT, compliance with regulations, directive and textile standards, reliability over time, maintenance program plans and continuous research for solutions that can reduce water and energy consumption, while optimising the production cycle. Choosing dye-sublimation transfer printing means choosing relevant water and energy savings, while shortening the production steps. The dye-sub-transfer printing process helps print service providers to switching to recycled polyester. It also enables paper manufacturers with a commitment to safety and the sustainable use of resources. These are pivotal elements to creating and maintaining a sustainable production chain.

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