Historically, wide-format printing expanded outward from relatively straightforward signs, banners, and point-of-purchase graphics. Then several adjacent streams began flowing together: display graphics, trade-show exhibits, environmental graphics, retail décor, architectural signage, dimensional fabrication, branded interiors, installation, and, increasingly, management of the entire physical customer, employee, and visitor experience.
The printing industry has been described as undergoing convergence for the past decade or so. For example, commercial offset printing companies have been adding wide-format printing, mailing, promotional items, and other services that create a “one-stop shop” experience for customers that require a full suite of marketing production services.
In the segment of the printing industry that utilizes digital wide-format technologies, we observe a different trend: the confluence of previously distinct service disciplines, each serving different end purposes, coming together to create something larger, all with digital wide-format printing technologies at their core.
Duggal Acquires Design to Print
Among the more significant September transactions was Duggal Visual Solutions’ acquisition of Design to Print*, with operations in St. George, Utah, and Las Vegas, Nevada. Design to Print (DTP) had evolved well beyond the conventional definition of a wide-format printer. DTP’s work includes trade shows, exhibits, retail programs, and experiential environments, supported by capabilities such as proprietary SEG systems, structural fabrication, project management, installation, and de-installation. The company still puts ink on substrates, lots of it, but describing Design to Print simply as a printer misses much of what its customers are actually buying. The printed piece is often only one component of a much broader deliverable: the ability to create, transform, and execute a physical space while managing the fabrication, logistics, installation, and immovable deadlines that frequently accompany complex event and experiential work.
Duggal likewise operates well beyond the traditional definition of a printing company. Its capabilities span large-format and commercial print, fabrication, digital signage, experiential displays, creative services and installation, with the ability to manage large-scale programs and rollouts. The combination therefore brings together two companies that have moved substantially upstream and downstream from the central production process.
Design to Print adds complementary capabilities, people, customer relationships and specialized expertise, while extending Duggal’s geographic reach through the acquired western operations. The strategic rationale involves substantially more than adding printing capacity or another book of business. In a mature print market, the ability to design, fabricate, manage and execute increasingly complex visual environments represents a capability that can be far more difficult to replicate than simply purchasing another piece of equipment.
Read this full article on Printing Impressions, a publication of PRINTING United Alliance, ASI’s strategic partner.
