Print Mastermind at PRINTING United Expo 2026

Some of the best ideas in print don't happen on a stage...they happen in conversation! THRILLED to introduce Print Mastermind x Spill the Ink at PRINTING United Expo 2026! Together with our PRINTING United Expo All-Stars Captain, Colin Sinclair McDermott (WABC RCC), we're creating a new destination where printers can gather for honest conversations about growing their businesses, embracing AI, tackling challenges, sharing ideas, and learning from one another. This isn't another presentation series, it's a community-driven experience built around the power of peer-to-peer connection. As Colin says: "The print industry has always been at its best when people are willing to help each other succeed. We're proud to bring that spirit to life on the Expo show floor." 📍 Join us September 23–25 in Las Vegas and experience Print Mastermind x Spill the Ink in the Spill the Ink District. 👉 Interested in joining the conversations? Register for the Expo and then indicate your interest to join a Spill the Ink session here: https://lnkd.in/e7p3AxiG Learn more in the press release below 👇 #PRINTINGUnitedExpo #PrintMastermind #SpillTheInk #PrintingUnited #PrintCommunity #PrintIndustry #Networking #BusinessGrowth #Leadership #AI #Collaboration #LasVegas Colin Sinclair McDermott (WABC RCC) Joshua Carruth Nicole Cho Carly O’Neill Julia Villano Rice Denise M. Gustavson Prescott Shannon Hennessey

The Hidden Cost of Cheap Printing (Part 4) When Cheap Printing Becomes Expensive: Lessons from Real-Life Experiences It's been a little while since my last post in this series. Work schedules demanded my full attention, so I had to pause for a bit. Thank you to everyone who has followed the series so far. Today, we're picking up right where we left off. There's an old saying among experienced printers: "The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of a cheap price is forgotten." After spending years in the printing industry, I've seen this play out repeatedly. Across Lagos, Ogun, and Oyo States, printing businesses regularly receive customers who aren't placing new orders. They're returning to fix problems that began with one simple decision: choosing the cheapest option available. To be clear, this isn't an argument against affordable printing. Many printers offer exceptional quality at competitive prices. The problem arises when a low price comes at the expense of quality, durability, or reliable delivery. Consider a few familiar scenarios. A political campaign saved money by choosing the lowest quotation for thousands of posters. Within days, poor ink quality caused the posters to fade after exposure to rain and sunlight, forcing a complete reprint. A restaurant opted for the cheapest laminated menus. Within a week, the lamination peeled, the pages curled, and replacements became unavoidable. A young entrepreneur printed low-cost business cards before an important networking event. The cards bent easily, creating a poor first impression before a single conversation even began. A private school accepted an unusually cheap quotation for admission brochures. Production delays meant the brochures arrived after the admission campaign had ended. The printing wasn't the problem. The timing was. These examples reveal an important truth: the real cost of printing goes far beyond the invoice. The better question isn't simply, "How much does it cost?" It's "What value am I getting for what I'm paying?" Great printing delivers quality, durability, reliability, and peace of mind. Because sometimes, the most expensive print job isn't the one with the highest quotation. It's the one you have to print twice. Part 5: How to Identify True Printing Value Before You Spend a Naira. see you shortly. Share your experience in the comments 👇 📌 Follow my WhatsApp Channel for more practical insights on printing, branding, design, and business: https://lnkd.in/e4SJ9y9q #PrintingTips #Branding #PrintMarketing #BusinessGrowth #PackagingDesign #Entrepreneurship #SmallBusiness #CorporateBranding #MarketingStrategy #LagosBusiness #NigeriaBusiness #PrintIndustry #BusinessTips #LinkedInNigeria #CustomerExperience

Flexographic vs. Digital Label Printing: Choosing the Right Technology in 2026 The label printing market continues to evolve rapidly, with flexographic and digital technologies each carving out distinct roles. Understanding the strengths and limitations of each method is essential for brand owners and procurement professionals who need to balance quality, cost, speed, and sustainability requirements. Flexographic printing remains the workhorse of the label industry, particularly for long runs. Modern flexo presses have made remarkable strides in quality, with advances in plate technology, anilox roller precision, and expanded color gamut (ECG) printing. Today's top-tier flexo presses can achieve print quality that rivals gravure, even on challenging substrates like recycled and mono-materials. For runs exceeding 5,000 linear meters, flexo typically offers the lowest per-unit cost. Digital label printing, led by high-speed inkjet and toner technologies, excels in the short-run and variable-data segments. The ability to produce 500 unique labels with different barcodes, text, or designs — without any plate changeover — makes digital the clear choice for personalized packaging, seasonal promotions, and test markets. Setup times are measured in minutes rather than hours, enabling just-in-time production that reduces inventory carrying costs. The most significant trend in 2026 is the rise of hybrid printing systems. These machines combine flexo stations for stable, high-speed base printing with digital inkjet units for variable data and customization — all in a single pass. A hybrid press might print a brand's standard label design flexographically while adding variable QR codes, serial numbers, or personalized text digitally. This approach delivers the best of both worlds: the cost efficiency of flexo for the base run with the flexibility of digital for customization. Sustainability considerations increasingly influence technology choice. Flexo's adoption of water-based and UV-LED inks has reduced VOC emissions significantly. Digital printing produces less waste because it requires no plates and fewer make-ready sheets. Both technologies now support recyclable and compostable label materials, though substrate compatibility varies. Linerless label technology — which eliminates the silicone release liner — is gaining traction across both platforms as a waste-reduction strategy. For buyers evaluating label suppliers, the key question is no longer "flexo or digital?" but rather "how well does this converter integrate both?" The suppliers that invest in hybrid capabilities and understand the full range of substrate options will be best positioned to meet the diverse needs of the modern label market. https://lnkd.in/g3UswkHU

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗢𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲® 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲! Reaching more than 95,000 print professionals worldwide, this week's edition is packed with the latest customer success stories, product launches, market analysis, software updates and exclusive video interviews from across the global print industry. 📩 Read the latest edition here: Printing Connect Online® Newsletter – July 6 Edition - https://lnkd.in/evwYPbpE 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸'𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲: 🖨️ Keypoint Intelligence's deep dive into the rapid growth of Chinese inkjet equipment manufacturers and what it could mean for the future of the industry. ✂️ Summa showcases how its F1625 has become the ultimate productivity tool for Domisa Graphique. 💻 PrintVis launches PrintVis 28, making it even easier for print businesses to improve efficiency and profitability. 🎨 Mimaki Europe B.V. helps Express Print expand production with an enhanced fleet of digital printing technologies. 👋 Fiery announces Micah Kornberg as its new Chief Executive Officer. 📌 Photoxport Global LTD introduces the new Mount Industria M6, simplifying print mounting. ⚙️ Discover how LPi scaled production to 27 million newsletters every week through print automation with Infigo. 📚 SCREEN Europe Graphic Solutions supports Poligrafia Janusz Nowak as it enters digital book production with the Truepress JET 520HD Mono. 🇯🇵 See how Sansho Printing is achieving stable thin paper production using Komori's advance EX Edition. 🎥 Exclusive interviews and insights from Durst Group AG, Fujifilm Print US, Steinemann DPE AG, EFI, HP, and Canon Production Printing, covering everything from production software and workflow automation to finishing, service, and next-generation print technologies. 📅 𝗨𝗽𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 📍 thINK Ahead 2026 – The annual Canon Production Printing inkjet customer conference returns for three days of innovation, networking and collaboration. 📍 The Future of Print is Connected Technology – Join XMPie, A CareAR Company, Jet Tech Group Ltd, Imprint MIS, Plockmatic Group and Fujifilm Print on 14 July at the Fujifilm Innovation Print Experience to discover how connected workflows are transforming print production. 📍 Plus, don't miss Joanne Gore's thought-provoking feature from on "The AI Elephant in the Room" and why poor-quality AI-generated content could be costing businesses far more than they realise. Whether your focus is commercial print, packaging, wide format, workflow software, automation, inkjet, finishing or digital transformation, this week's newsletter is packed with valuable insight from the companies shaping the future of print. #PrintIndustry, #DigitalPrinting, #Workflow, #Automation, #ProductionPrinting, #PrintTechnology

Your printing experience is not broken by accident; it is fragmented by design. Your sticker printer will not do banners. Your banner printer does not have the coating you actually need. One shop is optimized for cheap bulk work, but disappears when you need premium packaging or special finishes. You want onboarding gift packs for new employees or customers, but coordinating items, branding, inserts, and delivery becomes a project that steals your time. You would love a simple subscription model for recurring print, but you still end up explaining the same requirements on every order. Standard boxes and packaging do not fit your real product dimensions or unboxing experience. You still have to leave your house or office to place orders, approve proofs, and pick up finished jobs. You have a strong design idea in mind, but no professional designer who can quickly experiment and iterate with you. When you finally get it right, reordering should be a few clicks, not a full reset of the entire process. This is how a fragmented print ecosystem feels from the customer side: every vendor is optimized for one narrow thing, and the burden of coordination falls on you. At Colorkloud, we choose to act as a solutions partner, not just another printing press. We focus on hyper niche, fast turn, low minimum fully branded starter kits for SaaS onboarding, subscription boxes, conference swag, and launch campaigns. We build pre templated workflows so you can move from idea to prototype to production without becoming a full time print project manager. We provide a white label order management and routing system that lets local printers plug into Colorkloud instead of building their own tech stack. This means more capabilities for you banners, stickers, packaging, specialty coatings and formats without you needing to manage ten different vendors. We standardize what should be simple, like onboarding kits, reorder flows, and subscription based replenishment. We customize what must be unique, like your structure, coatings, inserts, and overall unboxing experience. We give you a digital experience for something that has historically been offline, slow, and inconsistent. You should not need to know which press, substrate, or coating to choose. You should only need to know the outcome you want for your brand, and we handle the orchestration behind it. At Colorkloud, we position ourselves as your print and packaging infrastructure partner, so you can focus on building your business instead of chasing and coordinating vendors. If your current print setup feels fragmented, repetitive, and manual, we are here to help you turn it into a simple, reliable, and scalable system. #Colorkloud #Printing #Warehousing #PrintInfrastructure #PrintEcosystem #PrintNetwork #WhiteLabelSolutions #PrintFulfillment

https://lnkd.in/eGHSJ9DB London – July 2026 – Perfect Colours, a leader in print management solutions, has highlighted  the availability of Print Factory, a unified Raster Image Processor (RIP) designed to deliver consistent, high-quality colour output across multiple printers. The solution addresses one of the print industry's most persistent challenges: maintaining colour accuracy and consistency across different devices and workflows. Colour inconsistency across printers and RIPs is a well-known pain point for print professionals. It results in wasted media, increased operational costs, and hours of recalibration time. Print Factory eliminates these inefficiencies by consolidating all printer management into a single, intelligent RIP platform. By operating as a one-stop solution, Print Factory enables print businesses to standardise their output across every device on the floor — regardless of make or model. The result is a dramatic reduction in media waste, faster turnaround times, and a measurable improvement in overall print quality. Perfect Colours, Jason Burroughs, Jon Telling, Rachel Heath, Awais Mazhar Khan, Nick Martin Christina Voysey, Duncan Baker, Mark Voysey PrintFactory, Erik Strik, Simon Landau, Debra Hobden, Adam Chamberlain, MediaCo Super-Wide Digital Ltd Prinfab Forest Digital Friedman's Limited Magic Textiles Sharps Fabric Printers Limited Meshtex Printing Services Citrus Rain Hollywood Monster RMC Digital Print Moss UK FASTSIGNS® HFE Signs Ltd Ottimo Digital LtdFaberExposize UK CottonBee BannerboxPincroft Dyeing and Printing Kornit Digital, Ronen Samuel, Scott Walton, Brendan M.

Ready to put your best label forward?🏷️👀 Choosing a label printing company isn't just about finding the lowest quote. It's about finding a partner who will help your products succeed. Whether you're launching a new product, rebranding an existing range or looking to improve quality, the right label printer can save you time, reduce costly mistakes and help your products stand out on the shelf. In our latest guide, we've shared some of the most important questions you should ask before placing an order, including: ✅ Can they recommend the right material and adhesive for your product? ✅ Do they offer the print finishes your brand needs? ✅ Can they scale with your business as demand grows? ✅ What level of technical support and customer service can you expect? ✅ How quickly can they deliver without compromising quality? With over 25 years of experience, we've worked with businesses of every size — from exciting start-ups launching their first product to established manufacturers producing thousands of labels every day. We know that every project is different, which is why taking the time to choose the right printing partner can make all the difference. If you're currently comparing suppliers or planning your next product launch, this guide will help you make a more informed decision. Read the full blog here: https://buff.ly/LHwgwwI If you'd like to discuss your next label project, our team is always happy to help. #LabelPrinting #CustomLabels #ProductPackaging #PackagingDesign #Manufacturing #FoodPackaging #BottleLabels #ProductLabels #Branding #UKManufacturing

For years, I assumed the sticker industry was just... the sticker industry. The more I worked in manufacturing, the more I realized that's not true. Today, there are really two completely different sticker industries operating side by side: • One is optimized for ordering 50, 500, or even a few thousand stickers quickly online. • The other is built for companies buying tens of thousands, or millions of stickers where manufacturing efficiency becomes the biggest driver of cost. The surprising part? Many growing companies never realize they've crossed from one world into the other. They simply keep buying stickers the same way they always have, potentially leaving a significant amount of money on the table. In this article, we explore how the sticker industry quietly evolved into two very different business models, why digital printing changed everything, and how to recognize when your business may have outgrown the manufacturing process that made sense when you were smaller. If your company purchases custom stickers or labels regularly, this may change how you think about buying them. https://lnkd.in/g6By-JaR

What the Spec Sheet Doesn’t Show in Continuous Production Digital Label Printers The transition from flexo to digital label printing is reshaping production floors, but many procurement decisions still focus narrowly on print speed and width. For label converters running multi-SKU and short-run orders daily, sustained uptime and material consistency matter more than peak speed. Take the GR350S, a roll-to-roll UV label printer built for continuous production. At its core, the machine relies on an industrial metal frame and sheet-metal enclosure, paired with precision rollers, a roll-to-roll feeding and rewinding system, UV inkjet printing unit, UV curing modules, and an electrical control cabinet. This structural configuration supports printing speeds of 20–100 m/min with a printing width of 110–350 mm, using Epson S3200-U1 or S3200-U3 printheads. Yet the real engineering lies in what isn’t visible on a spec sheet. For instance, the GR350S includes a label sensor for mark tracking and supports intelligent deviation correction — features that reduce waste during job changes. Its optional pre-coating and post-coating varnish systems allow converters to handle gloss or tactile effects without separate equipment. For film-based labels (PE, PET, BOPP, PP, OPP), a corona treatment module can be integrated to improve UV ink adhesion on difficult substrates. This level of configurability matters when a single machine must run coated paper, clear PET, and silver BOPP in the same shift. The GR350S is designed for variable data applications — QR codes, barcode labels, serialized labels — without requiring batch PDF conversion, thanks to its direct database printing capability. From a production capacity standpoint, Nanjing Grando Digital Technology Co., Ltd., the manufacturer behind the Grandoprint brand, operates dual bases in Nanjing and Shanghai with a total factory area exceeding 20,000 m² and an annual output of 15,000 units. The R&D team includes 30 engineers with over 20 years of technical service experience. Export business accounts for 70% of total sales, with major markets spanning the United States, Germany, Brazil, Australia, Thailand, and Italy. Choosing a digital label printer is not just about speed or ink type. It’s about evaluating how the machine’s mechanical frame, media handling, and optional modules align with the substrates and order profiles you run every day. A robust roll-to-roll system with genuine engineering depth reduces long-term operational risk far more than any headline number. For a deeper look at the GR350S specifications and configurations, download the product brochure: 📄 https://lnkd.in/gychBMDU #DigitalLabelPrinter #ContinuousProduction #UVLabelPrinting #RollToRollPrinting #LabelPrintingIndustry #IndustrialPrinting #PrintingTechnology

🌐 Global Single-Pass Digital Printing Machine Market to Witness Strong Growth Through 2030 🚀 📄 Download Free PDF Brochure:https://lnkd.in/dsKjWrZR 📈 Primary Growth Drivers:The Single-Pass Digital Printing Machine Market is expanding rapidly due to the growing adoption of digital printing across packaging, textiles, labels, corrugated packaging, and commercial printing. 🤖 Technological Advancements:Artificial Intelligence, cloud-based workflow management, IoT-enabled predictive maintenance, machine vision inspection, automated color calibration, and Industry 4.0 integration are transforming digital printing operations. 🌱 Shift in Industry Preference:Manufacturers are increasingly investing in single-pass digital printing systems that deliver faster turnaround times, high-resolution output, lower energy consumption, and environmentally friendly printing solutions. 🏭 Leading Segment Analysis:The Packaging Printing segment dominates the market, driven by increasing demand for flexible packaging, labels, and corrugated boxes, while the Textile Digital Printing segment is expected to witness the fastest growth due to the shift toward on-demand and customized textile production. 🏢 End-User Insights:Major end users include packaging manufacturers, commercial printing companies, textile producers, label converters, publishing houses. 🌍 Regional Analysis:North America remains a major market due to advanced printing technologies and automation adoption. Asia-Pacific is projected to register the fastest growth, supported by expanding manufacturing activities, e-commerce packaging demand. 🏆 Competitive Landscape:Leading companies are strengthening their market positions through AI-powered print technologies, strategic acquisitions, product innovation, sustainable ink development, and global expansion to meet rising demand for high-speed digital printing solutions. Top Companies ➢ HP ➢ Canonical. ➢ Epson America Inc. ➢ Xerox ➢ RICOH Company Limited. ➢ FUJIFILM Americas ➢ SCREEN Graphic Solutions Co., Ltd. ➢ Durst Group AG ➢ EFI ➢ Agfa-Gevaert S.A. ➢ Koenig & Bauer (CH) AG ➢ Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG ➢ Domino Printing Sciences ➢ Markem-Imaje ➢ MIMAKI ENGINEERING CO., LTD. ➢ Roland DG Corporation ➢ Brother Industries, Ltd. ➢ KYOCERA Global ➢ XAAR PLC ➢ SPGPrints ➢ Colordyne Technologies ➢ Afinia Label ➢ AstroNova, Inc. ➢ Dover Corporation ➢ Xeikon ➢ BOBST ➢ OMET Srl ➢ Uteco ➢ Gallus Group ➢ Eastman Kodak Company ➢ Inca Digital ➢ swissQprint America AG ➢ Atlantic Zeiser, a Coesia company ➢ MUTOH HOLDINGS Co Ltd ➢ Seiko Instruments ➢ Memjet Technology ➢ Atexco ➢ MS Printing Solutions ➢ Komori Corporation #SinglePassPrinting #DigitalPrinting #PackagingPrinting #IndustrialPrinting #AI #Industry40 #SmartManufacturing #Automation #PrintingTechnology #Packaging #MarketResearch #Innovation