Author: RedPandas

Our customers know how much NEXT loves working on large-format printing projects.  

With a high-quality finish, optimum sustainability and the opportunity to go big and bold creatively, what’s not to love? 

Today’s article looks closely at our leading (and most-requested) print service, large-format printing: what it is, and why marketers, events teams and visual merchandisers love to go large as much as we do! 

What is large-format printing? 

Just as it sounds, large-format printing is capable of handling print requests considered above the standard size. Traditionally, print machinery was manufactured to handle paper sizes like A4 and in small quantities, but today’s machines – built much larger in comparison – can manage prints up to several feet long on repeat runs. Indeed, to be classed as ‘large’, a print must exceed 18 inches in width or height. That’s substantially larger than A4! 

Large-format print machinery uses laser technology to print the design onto the chosen material, be it paper, fabric, vinyl or wood. It prints quickly and accurately, creating beautiful and vibrant designs in full colour. 

It might be twenty-odd years old, but large-format printing is still considered ‘new’ in our sector. Yet since the first-ever large format print run in the early 1990s, it’s been ramping rapidly, now the preferred process for many printers and their SMB or corporate customers looking to up-size their printed collateral and make a jaw-dropping statement or two! 

Why choose large-format printing? 

There are SO many reasons to choose this printing method, and it’s not only the size of your print that benefits. Here’s what else you can expect when you choose large-format printing for your next print project. 

Large-format printing is big on size AND quality 

Once upon a time, blowing up an image in size impacted the picture quality – but not anymore. Large printing technology can increase an image size with zero distortion, presenting any pictures and words used in your design with clarity and in full colour.  

Large-format printing is cost efficient 

With the ability to produce large-scale prints to a high quality and quickly, large-format printing is cost effective upfront and over time, with your printed piece set to last longer thanks to its incredible durability.  

Large-format printing is better for the environment 

Large-format digital printing uses a different process to conventional methods, which take the print from a metal plate. Having to repeatedly change a plate to accommodate new designs – even for just the tiniest of tweaks to a word – means massive amounts of waste resulting from the printing process. They require less energy to run than older printing presses too – another win for the environment.  

Large-format printing loves any material 

When it comes to large-format printing, don’t think you need to limit yourself to paper. All kinds of materials can handle digital printing – so long as they can fit through the printer!  

Vinyl, cloth, glass, foam board, plastic, and metal: These materials all love digital printing. 

One of our favourites is the highly durable and eco-friendly paper base product, ReBoard.  

You can learn more about the magic of ReBoard for large format printing here! 

Best uses for large-format printing 

As we’ve seen, large-format printing is nicely versatile with the ability to produce high-quality coloured prints to all manner of materials without costing – or damaging – the earth. 

And when you have something at your disposal that ticks so many boxes, things become incredibly exciting for marketers, events display designers and visuals teams.  

It seems the sky’s the limit with large-format printing – from billboards to bus banners! If you’re still not sure how you might use large-format printing, here are some ideas: 

• Exhibition booths 
• Point-of-sale displays 
• Event stands 
• Pop-up banners 
• Floor graphics 
• Signs for tradeshows 
• Banners 
• Posters 
• Pillar wraps 
• Wall infographics 

Want to see something really creative using large-format digital printing? Read about the interactive media and marketing materials produced by NEXT and Havas Blvd for the Coca Cola-sponsored FIFA World Cup 2022 Trophy Tour! 

Are large format printing and wide format printing the same thing? 

We are often asked what is wide-format printing and if it is the same as large format printing. They’re not quite one and the same thing, although they do perform a similar task – and it’s all about the size.  

Where large format printing includes any prints up to 60 inches, wide format printing goes beyond this to cover prints ranging from 60 inches to 100 inches. Think huge event banners or graphics designed to cover an entire wall.  

Does this mean 100 inches is the limit for large-format printing? There is potential nowadays to print even bigger pieces again using grand format printing, capable of producing billboards and scaffolding wraps over 100 inches in size.  

Ready to go large with your next creative printing project? Talk to the experts – NEXT – the leaders in large format digital printing in Australia. There is nothing we cannot print! 

Speak to a print expert 

When it comes to creating an unforgettable first impression, nobody needs to nail it more than RETAIL.  

Window displays are often the first point of contact your potential customers see – and subsequently, your chance to shine. Using high quality print can help you stand out on the high street, luring folks in for a peek and – hopefully – a purchase. 

Today, we’re looking at window displays that WOW!  

What Makes an Impressive Retail Window Display? 

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When it comes to retail displays, it’s all about the eye of the consumer! If you don’t catch their eye as they wander by, shoppers are not coming through the door! 

Think how many people pass your retail window every day. Depending on your location – city CBD or remote suburb – there are a few to a thousand feet (and eyes) passing you, all of whom are potential customers. How about giving them a reason to pop in? 

Print allows for almost anything nowadays, whether directly involved in the main advertising piece – as a product stand, for example – or serving as a backdrop. It’s all about conjuring maximum pulling power when you put together a retail window display, and there are three must-haves window display designers swear by: 

Colour: Nothing lifts a window display more than colour. Whether you’re using multiple colours from your brand palette or building a theme around a single colour, bright prints bring vibrancy to your shop window display and draw attention to it. So, go bold and bring in the crowds! 

Clarity: Even the largest window display can soon look cluttered if you over-fill it; in fact, the larger the area, the more likely you are to go overboard. Keep it clutter-free so passers-by can see your products clearly, and use print to emphasise the sales message. 

Creativity: The shop window display is one of the oldest types of marketing around, which means almost everything possible has been done before! Be as creative as you can with your display to ensure a point of difference. Clothing brands can still use a mannequin or two – just be sure to add some contours and creative printing around them!  

Let’s chat Window Displays

Best Materials to Maximise your WOW-full Window Display 

Printing has evolved, allowing you to bring almost ANY idea to life, creating incredible scenes for your customers, old and new.   

You need to use the right materials to get the best out of print in your window display. These days, there are several to choose from, some providing a more suitable ‘blank canvas’ than others for high-quality printing. 

Lots of visual design teams these days work with Re-board®, thanks to its being so incredibly robust like MDF yet kinder to the environment. Super versatile, it cuts into all kinds of shapes to help create a winning window display. What’s more, Re-board® LOVES print, taking on images and colour without compromising the quality. 

When you have less need for durability and more need for delicacy, Paper is a great cost-effective material for your window displays. Printing to paper is easier than ever, with modern techniques helping you print to sizes previously unimaginable.  

Fabric is another fantastic material when looking for something flexible and luxurious, bringing a unique texture to your window display. Today’s textiles and print methods mean attaching colour to fabric is no issue, whatever the design, pattern or size.  

Let’s chat Window Display Materials

Tips for Top Creative Retail Window Display Ideas 

Thanks to print, there are thousands of ways – millions, even – to create a masterpiece in your shop window. All you need is an idea, and you’re already a good way there. 

Do you need some inspo ahead of your retail display refresh? Here are seven tips on creating retail windows that wow, along with some of our favourite window display ideas to help whet your appetite! 

1. Know your audience 

We all get how marketing begins by understanding your audience. Shop window displays are no different; they present the perfect opportunity to speak directly to your market.  

Make sure you know your audience deeply, which goes beyond your products. You can use plenty of other common traits shared by your demographic to connect with them. H&M did a brilliant job of this in their shop window display recently, using festival attire to speak with their mainly teen buyers with appropriately dressed mannequins and text. 

2. Shape up! 

A window display is your chance to set the tone before people walk through the IN door.  

In fact, it’s the job of your display to make sure that they do! And shapes can help you. 

Whether it’s a simple oversized version of your product or an elaborate zebra dipped in multi-coloured paint, shaped objects are eye-catching – do them well, and they are too hard to ignore.  

ReBoard® is the perfect material for shapes; simple to cut, flexible, durable and printable. See what it did for this Paul Smith window display! 

3. Draw eyes YOUR way! 

It sounds simple, yet creating a point of focus is trickier than you might think. Yes, you can opt for the straightforward and place your No1 product on a pedestal under a spotlight – job done! It serves a purpose, but it’s far from creative.   

Today’s communications need to pack a punch more than ever. If your shop is wedged between others selling similar or identical products, how will you stand out opting for straightforward? Look what Louis Vuitton achieved by adding candy-striped hot-air balloons to an otherwise basic display of its iconic bag. 

4. Let there be light! 

Simply put, your window display needs light – daytime and after dark!  

In the daylight, using lights to illuminate your window display produces depth, whether it’s spotlighting a product or bouncing light off a cut-out to create shadows. And once the natural light of day turns to evening, what better way to ensure your window display continues doing its job after hours, causing a scene for night revellers to enjoy? 

Here’s what Next Printing partner, Nordwerk, created using only Re-board® and some creative lighting! 

5. Use words AND pictures 

High-quality colour prints look incredible and speak volumes to onlookers – although your window-based communication will do wisely for having some text thrown in too.  

Words can add much to your message, from frosted lettering on a window to several-sentence poetic pieces printed on the back panel of your display. Indeed, when you don’t want your visuals to leave your target market wondering, ‘What?’, words help cement the detail. Clothing brand Holt Renfrew didn’t want to rely on its giant giraffe heads selling the message in their new year sale retail display window and used a sentence explaining the animals’ resolution ‘to hold your head high’. 

6. Benefit from your location 

Consider your geographic position – do you sell something that benefits the consumer’s immediate surroundings? If yes, use your unique position wisely! 

See what this store at Sydney Airport achieved in its window display, showing off products specifically beneficial to travellers. And what better way to do so than with a beautifully carved Re-board® cityscape to hang products from?  

7. Go interactive 

Nowadays, there is no need for a glass window to prevent your potential buyer from interacting with you – even after hours. Thanks to the QR code, those voyeurs behind the glass can quickly engage in your world using their phones to scan the code and see all your products and promo goodies.  

How about some motion sensors so the QR code appears as someone walks by? Or, if the budget allows, why not add audio and touch activation to support the visuals within the window? Begin the customer experience outside and you’re far more likely to beckon people inside. 

Print can play a major role in your retail displays – take it from someone with experience: NEXT Printing! 

Our expert team helps designers, visual directors, and marketers bring their brand to life in their own front room (aka shop window!). When you’re next working on a new retail display or refreshing an existing one, chat with our team and we’ll provide an idea or two about creating something spectacular! 

Ready to talk creative window displays? 

Let’s Talk! 

Do you want to create an immersive experience for your exhibition, event or shop-front to engage customers directly with your brand? 

Meet the cool kid in town: the Pop-Up Display. And what a stir it’s causing! 

Today, we’re getting up close and cosy with this interactive brand booster, exploring what a pop-up display is, why it’s the leading option for brand immersion and how to create your own incredible pop-ups. 

What is a Pop-Up Display – and Why Create One? 

Many of you will know all about the pop-up display and its incredible super power, drawing in potential customers physically to connect, engage and interact.   

For those who don’t know… Pop-Ups are all the rage when it comes to brand activation. And here’s why. 

In today’s fast-moving world, consumers are overloaded with buying options, many of which are flashed under their noses digitally at hyper-speed.  

Brands have learned one of the best ways to connect with their audience is through physical interaction. It makes for an immediate, deeper and more meaningful connection that sticks in the consumer’s memory for longer. And, in time, these connections are more likely to become sales.  

Maybe you want to tell the world about your new shiny product or test a space in a shopping mall for size. Perhaps you want to increase traffic on your social platforms.   

Whatever your brand activation goals, a pop-up display will help you to achieve yours quickly.  

Learn more about pop-up displays! 

Creating Pop-Up Displays 

Pop-ups do what they say on the tin – they ‘pop up’, pull in a crowd and disappear again. And that’s OK; fundamentally, they are designed to create a buzz about a brand and its product or service quickly. A marketing sniper, if you will. 

While a pop-up display is never permanent, some will stick around for longer than others, depending on the project and its objectives. Regardless of the lifespan, pop-up displays always appear in the same places – in a store, at a mall, exhibition or event – where footfall is typically high.  

As for types of pop-up displays, the opportunities are limitless. Perhaps you want to create a display for social media purposes, where customers can take selfies and spread the word about your brand using hashtags. Or a serving window to dish up edible delights themed around your brand. Maybe it’s a space for consumers to sit and immerse themselves in your brand colours. Anything that helps cement your brand in their brain!  

You’ll also want to consider the right materials to use for your pop-up display. All have their benefits and lend themselves to different types of pop-up display: 

• Paper-based Re-board® is exceptionally robust and great for load-bearing pop-up displays you want to last. Easy to assemble (and pack away!), transport and store, Re-board® is preferred by many in the industry nowadays – and it’s great for the environment too. 
• Paper is another good material to use when the design requires less structure and more delicacy.
• Fabric also works well for some pop-up displays when you need a flexible material that is easy to hang. It’s also easy to roll and transport. 

Let’s chat pop-up displays!

Immersive, Impressive, Inclusive Pop-Up Displays 

Whatever material you use, your pop-up display must be immersive, impressive and inclusive. 

Immersive is what underlines this type of marketing. So, whatever you do with your pop-up display, make sure your audience of potential customers has the ability to engage physically as they get to know you. 

You won’t get the footfall if your pop-up display doesn’t impress. Go for a stand-out display produced to the highest quality if you want to turn heads (and beckon feet!). 

Be as inclusive as possible. Sure, you won’t appeal to all demographics – which products do? Yet you need to capture the imagination of your key target market and involve as much of that market as possible while they’re in front of you. Pop up and pack a punch! 

Pop-Up Displays in Action! 

All ready to pop-up? Here are five of our favourite pop-up display ideas from recent times to give you some final inspiration  

Be proud – go LOUD! 

As we’ve mentioned, the pop-up display is all about pulling in a crowd and gaining maximum engagement as consumers visit your stand. An eye-catching design is a must; colour alone can lift your pop-up to lofty heights! 

Well-known brands are often recognised by their colour pallete, which makes for easy pickings when it comes to choosing what colours to use for your pop-up display. See what leading skincare brand Clinique achieved with The Make Haus and their beautifully pink pop-up store in Sydney, which welcomed hundreds of influencers and consumers to try their best-selling moisturiser. Seventy sheets of pink-printed Re-board® sure made a statement in downtown Sydney! 

Of course, brand colours are not compulsory, and your project may well warrant something different – printed images of people or places, for example. Whatever you decide, use a high-quality large format printer to give your printed pop-up display the premium finish it deserves. 

Plain pop-ups 

No printing? No problem! Often, a pop-up display says a whole lot more when it’s left unprinted.  

Some brands opt for plain pop-up displays to allow their product to stand out from the background. Others choose not to print for environmental reasons, reducing the ink and electricity consumed through the large format printing process.   

If you do go plain on your pop-up display, balance it out by going bold on your engagement.  Give your consumer reason to stick around and immerse themselves in your world.  

You can see some examples here of how white works well in the display world. 

Think outside the box 

While it’s relatively easy to stick with a traditional table-type stand for consumer events, a pop-up display can speak volumes to its audience when incorporating shapes. 

By recreating objects or places using shapes – a giant-sized version of your product, a tree-lined wintery forest, a shark-infested underwater world – you can create a truly immersive space people find too hard to ignore as they wander by. Catch their eye, and consumers are more likely to engage, as was the case with this ocean-themed pop-up created to keep children entertained in shopping malls during the school holidays. 

Re-board® is exceptional when it comes to shapes, simple to cut and contour to your (designers) heart’s content. Hardy and flexible, it’s the perfect material for shape-led pop-ups. And don’t forget you can print onto it too! 

Light up that pop-up! 

Visual designers love lighting – and so do pop-up displays! Whether you’re using colours or keeping your display blank, there is nothing quite like lighting to set the tone and give your pop-up a lift.   

Depending on your materials, illuminating part of your pop-up display will create depth, which is particularly good for blank, non-printed activations. Or you may prefer to light up a product – placing it physically under the spotlight – to emphasise it while the rest of the display becomes background only.  

Light works incredibly well with shapes, too, casting shadows that give texture. See what Next partner, Nordwerk, achieved using only Re-board® and some creative lighting! 

Location is everything 

Because of their objective – to seek out and engage consumers in their brand – pop-ups tend to find themselves in malls, store entrances, and event rooms where footfall is high. 

Before you create your pop-up display, think about your available space. Is there room for consumers to wander? Do you want to showcase a product face-on, or is it better appreciated from multiple angles? Will visitors walk up, through or sit within your activation? Get a feel for the space first, and it will help guide your pop-up display design phase. 

Remember, if you want to go off-piste and pop up somewhere slightly different to the usual spaces, you will need to go BIG on telling your audience where to find you. Footfall will always be high in a mall or store – not so much the case forty floors up in a CBD high-rise!  

There are thousands of pop-up store display ideas – and lots of those begin right here at NEXT Printing! 

Our expert team helps visual directors, designers and marketers bring their pop-up exhibition display ideas to life in print. Using high-quality, durable materials like Re-board® our solutions meet the environmental objectives of our customers and pack a marketing punch for optimum engagement. 

Ready to talk immersive Pop-Up Displays? 

Let’s Talk!