The Queensland branch of the Lithographic Institute of Australia (LIA) has announced a free industry event to be held at Konica Minolta in Brisbane on October 23 to celebrate International Print Day. LIA NSW will host a similar event on the same day in Sydney.

Roland DG has added new SG2 64", 54" and 30" wide format eco-solvent printer cutters to its second generation TrueVIS series. “The new SG2 series will appeal to a large number of digital print business owners, including those entering the sign and display graphics market.”

If we were to believe all the hype behind the digital sign industry – LED and LCD screens containing changeable ads – you’d be justified in thinking the conventional sign industry is on its knees. One digital sign news source even headlined an article ‘The Fall of the Sign Industry.’

Konica Minolta says its new partnership with US-based 3D printing technology manufacturer Markforged will equip Australia with next-generation tools to manufacture “the factories of the future.” 

OOH market leader oOh!media has announced a new awards program to recognise "individuals in the industry who make significant community contributions," providing them with media to promote their charity of choice across oOh!’s network.

The countdown is on for PRINTING United - the biggest show in the printing industry this year according to organisers SGIA and NAPCO Media - as word spreads about the newest equipment, software and substrates that will be shown in Dallas this month (October 23-25).

Nazdar Ink Technologies will showcase its new 204 Series wide format solvent ink at PRINTING United in Dallas TX between 23rd and 25th October 2019. The 204 Series inks offer an alternative for Roland TrueVIS SG and VG Series printers using TrueVIS TR inks.

The Out of Home (OOH) industry recorded a slight decrease of 0.9% on net media revenue year on year in the third quarter of 2019, posting $218.2 million, down from $220.2 million* for the third quarter in 2018. However, year to date industry revenue increased 3.1% to $665 million.

Ball & Doggett has launched its inaugural Graphics catalogue – “the first buyer’s guide of its kind in our industry” - featuring its range of wide format media from global brands including Avery Dennison, Yupo and Masterbond.

Currie Group, Konica Minolta and Océ will present latest digital embellishment technologies at this month’s LIA NSW technical dinner titled Digital Embellishment & Value-Added Print. The event takes place on International Print Day, 23 October.

Thieme presented a new digital printing system with automatic position detection for printing on automotive glass at the Vitrum 2019 glass printing fair in Milan, Italy this month.

Vehicle wrapper Melanie Fergin of Winguard Paint Protect Specialists in Adelaide has become the first woman to win the Continental crown for Australia and New Zealand in Avery Dennison Graphic Solutions' annual Wrap Like A King Challenge. Fergin will now compete for the world title in Las Vegas next month. The winning entry was Winguard's 2014 Porsche 911 Turbo S TECHART GTstreet R project.

HP has unveiled a two-year restructuring plan to become 'more digitally enabled' and will reduce its global headcount of 55,000 by about 7,000-9,000.  There's no indication yet of whether the plan will impact HP staff numbers in Australia and New Zealand. 

In our weekly survey last September 10^th, we asked the question: "Is self-adhesive labels a natural market for sign producers and should they invest in higher-productivity 'narrow-web' digital printers?" The news that Next Printing has moved into serious digital label capacity adds a 'QED' answer.

Military-grade spectrometer technology developed by government research agency the CSIRO and Sydney company DataDot Technology has been successfully trialled in a pilot program to accurately identify the origin of safe cladding on building façades. Counterfeit flammable cladding - said to be imported from China, with stickers attached falsely declaring it to be fire resistant - was found in Victoria just last month.

Canon is changing the trading name of its Océ businesses globally to Canon Production Printing, effective January 1, 2020. Océ – the production printing operation of Canon Group – will also integrate its products under the Canon brand name. The move comes less than two years after Canon renamed its local production print business Océ Oceania. 

Melbourne-based wide format supplier Charti expanded its national network with the acquisition of Gold Coast wide format supply business PT Store. The move comes less than a year after Charti bought Brisbane cut-sheet and large format media supplier Stanton Media.

Snap Print & Design, one of the largest printing franchise groups in Australia, has signed an exclusive partnership deal with Konica Minolta to provide printing equipment and technology to its 147 stores across the country.

US industry group SGIA and its newly-acquired media business NAPCO have announced the first Wide-format Summit, an invitation-only conference to be held April 20-22, 2020 in Austin, Texas. The event will be co-located with the 8th annual Inkjet Summit and have its own content.

With Epson, Fujifilm Dimatix, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Memjet, Ricoh, Seiko, Toshiba Tec, Xaar and many others attending, TheIJC 2019 (29-30 October in Düsseldorf) is the meeting point of the inkjet industry. 

Sabre Graphics says its purchase of two new Epson SureColor S80600 signage printers comes after the Sydney-based signage and graphics business won contracts with “multiple, high-end, international retail brands.”