To put a lid on what was a momentous 2024, the Wide-Format Impressions’ “News Team” – Dan, Denise, Gabby, and Toni – offer their impressions on the last twelve months, and provide a view into the future.
Dan Marx
Content Director, Wide-Format Impressions
Despite some softness in the wide-format segment, as shown by the 2024 PRINTING United Alliance State of the Industry Report – and attributable to a mix economic uncertainty, high interest rates, increased production costs, and the inherent hesitancy of a presidential election year – its portfolio of technologies and opportunities remained strong. The 2024 PRINTING United Expo featured robust new systems for printing and finishing, and interest in those solutions was high.
It would be safe to say that 2024 was, for many, the year of automation, as wide-format producers sought to offset rising production costs and address a labor crunch that, for the time being, has ebbed. For PSPs of all kinds, the benefits of successful automation efforts affect production costs, efficiency, quality, and the value of labor. It is a noble quest.
Regarding opportunities for the segment, there are two prime markets that gained a great deal of interest during 2024. The architectural and interior design market offers a large opportunities for those producers who are able to produce in ways that meet expectations and effectively engage (and sell to) that market. For others, the move toward experiential display has added a lucrative opportunity. That said, serving the experiential space often requires the addition of fabrication capabilities. Textile printing – specifically for SEG production – remains attractive. Other are seeking opportunity outside the core of wide-format, in areas such as apparel decoration and decals.
As an industry, the segment stands at the precipice of the transformative effects of artificial intelligence, which is already taking hold among those companies who are currently willing and able to “go there.” Moving forward, AI – driven by software – will increasingly be “baked into” the production systems we purchase and utilize, and what is novelty today will soon become commonplace, for better or worse. A recent webinar, presented by PRINTING United Alliance, provided an interesting look at where AI is being used in printing today, and a fascinating view of where it will take us.
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