Personalised gifts grew during lockdown as people looked for ways to remain close to family and friends
A personal touch
It can be said quite often about products and services, but print personalisation really boomed during the pandemic. With friends and family missing each other, a personalised gift helped to plug the hole until they could see one another again.
Not only this, but aspects such as variable data printing also helped this boom, with interest growing during the various lockdowns.
Variable data
In the sense of variable data printing, the personalisation came in the form of Covid-19 vaccine packaging, food and beverage and pharmaceutical products. The use of individual barcodes, QR codes and sequential numbers for track and trace showcases how personalisation is not all about adding someone’s name to a printed product, but how some packaging or print requires the same layout but with different aspects such as these codes and numbers.
On top of all this, consumers’ buying habits changed, which resulted in more people shopping online and e-commerce soaring. Research from Domino Printing Sciences says that because of this, pre-printed barcode labels also proved to grow the interest in variable data printing. Gary Peterson, variable data solutions manager for Domino North America, explains: “With people working from home and staying at home, the need to purchase items online has grown dramatically. This e-commerce surge has created an immediate increase for pre-printed labels in the logistics supply chains.”
O Factoid: Domino Printing Science customers saw a 40-50% increase in demand for variable data printing during the pandemic O
Some of Domino’s customers even reported a 40-50% increase in demand for variable data label printing. One of these companies was Becton Dickinson, which chose Domino printing technology to produce Covid-19 vaccine syringe packaging. The firm provided syringes and needles called Flu+ to help administer the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
Software
The IQ Digital House are an on-demand digital print house that offers both small-format and large-format work, following interest from their existing clients. The company further expanded with a creative division and added a logistics division in 2010.
Ian Savage is the co-owner and sales director for IQ, alongside Dean Larkham, who is the senior production director and co-owner. Savage explains: “To accommodate all our clients’ needs, we are a bit of a one-stop-shop. We are on-demand – our average turnaround for a job is probably less than 24 hours.”
Dean Larkham, co-owner and senior production director with Ian Savage, co-owner and sales director of The IQ Digital House
While Savage explains that the Hampshire-based company works across diverse sectors, like many print companies, the pandemic had an impact on some of these revenue streams. However, Savage says that this has allowed the team at IQ to think about different avenues and opportunities “particularly where personalisation is concerned”.
One successful area where personalisation has been utilised is the introduction of IQ Cards. Savage explains that this is a service where pupils at schools can design a Christmas card for example, this is then sent to IQ Digital, which creates thousands of these individual cards to send back and fundraise for the school.
Having started a relationship with Xeretec back in 2005, first investing in black and white and colour equipment, Savage said it was only natural to consider XMPie software for the personalisation side of things.
“We successfully added another division to our business called IQ Cards, which we’ve done for the last ten years, utilising XMPie for that project,” explains Savage, before continuing: “[This is] a fundraising project for junior, infant and primary schools where the child will design their own Christmas card using art equipment at the school. We get that back; we scan it, and we assign a name and personalise it to the recipient. We send that back to the schools and the schools get a percentage of that revenue, which they get from the parents.”
Savage continues: “This has been a very successful project for the last ten years and it is growing. It particularly grew last year because all of their main fundraising – their summer fayres and fetes – were all cancelled due to covid. So, it was really well supported by the schools and parents at Christmas, and that’s what we utilised XMPie for.”
Small businesses
The pandemic also helped to drive personalisation – people finally launched the small business they’d been sitting on, waiting for the push to do it.
This could be anything from personalised prints to other gifts like textiles and garments. Phil McMullin is the Pro Graphics sales manager for Epson UK and says that Epson made a note of the small businesses and start-ups, and recently launched the SureColor SC-F100 A4 dye-sublimation unit which costs less than £400. This can help these little enterprises to expand with items such as A4-sized prints and gifts. “It was developed for small businesses and start-ups looking to expand their product offering into the promotional goods sector where space is at a premium,” he says.
Epson UK recently launched the SureColor SC-F100 A4 dye-sublimation unit
“In addition, the price per ml is significantly lower than cartridge equivalents due to its refillable ink, also featured in its 24” big brother, the SureColor SC-F500.”
For bigger companies that can accommodate equipment to move into the print personalisation sector, Epson also offers dye-sublimation printers that can fit different budgets and applications. “For those with high growth demands, the new flagship, 255sq m/h SureColor SC-F10000 76” wide-format printer is an excellent option,” says McMullin.
“It was designed for high productivity, speed and reliability. Every component of this dye-sub printer has been specially designed, not only to enhance the user experience, but to help increase output, improve efficiency and lower costs.”
Any item can be personalised and dye-sublimation allows this possibility. McMullin explains: “A range of substrates or items that can be individually printed from mugs, key fobs, phone covers and other small merchandise pieces to fashion, sportswear, home furnishings, promotional goods and soft signage.
Personalised garments can be produced, such as this ‘school leavers’ t-shirt
“Thanks to dye-sublimation, the possibilities of what you can print onto are essentially endless and limited only by the designers’ imagination.”
Thanks to dye-sublimation, the possibilities of what you can print onto are essentially endless and limited only by the designers’ imagination”
McMullin also says that while some sectors struggled, such as photo and proofing markets, textile and promotional goods “accelerated”. He adds: “In the UK, this was driven by the internet and the ability of digital print technology to economically produce one-off items.
“For this sector, beyond the usual requirement of consistently high image quality and reliability, we are now seeing affordability and actually just the ability to supply products coming to the fore.”
Garment personalisation
In May this year, TheMagicTouch and Resolute DTG announced a collaboration and launched new direct-to-film (DTF) transfer technology.
It is important to think about aspects such as being able to produce short and long-run full colour transfers when producing personalised garments. These transfers need to work with cotton, polyester, leather, softshell, performance fabrics, pique blends, canvas and even denim – regardless of colour or composition.
TheMagicTouch states that this new process is simple – all you have to do is print the roll-fed 60cm-wide coated PET film using a special pigment-based textile ink. Then you lightly coat the printed transfer with a hot-melt adhesive powder. Following this, the transfer is then cured using the ‘Shake&Bake’ roll-fed unit, a heat press or a traditional dryer. The cured transfer is then applied to the garment or product using a heat press.
Also mentioned is the R-Jet Pro DTF printer, which features dual printhead technology, 2 x 8 channel industrial printheads – two CMYK and eight W. This is powered using the Resolute RIP Pro software to ensure control and colour management. This DTF technology is suited to companies that would like to offer textile services but do not want to use direct-to-garment (DTG) technology or even screen printing.
Jim Nicol, managing director of TheMagicTouch, explains: “We have previously opted away from DTG for various reasons and indeed passed any enquiry directly to Colin and his team at Resolute, but the DTF process is simply the best new transfer solution for many, many years.
Jim Nicol of TheMagicTouch and Colin Marsh of Resolute DTG
“With our transfer experience combined with Resolute’s knowledge and experience with DTG we believe we have the perfect combination to market and more importantly support this product beyond customer expectations. This really is a game changer for this industry.”
For printers that are interested in direct-to-film and getting involved with this way of producing personalised garments, TheMagicTouch and Resolute DTG supply the printers and powder units together with the inks, PET film and the consumables. Getting personal Personalised print can refer to many aspects within the industry – from producing personalised mail using software and digital print kit; producing mugs, tote bags, key fobs and even personalised chocolate bars as gifts.
The pandemic accelerated the need for personalised gifts in order to stay close to people, as well as pushing businesses to look at options such as pharmaceutical packaging and label printing as another revenue stream.
Now is the time to start looking into personalised print – whichever path you choose.
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