My Favorite Signs, Materials and Equipment at Printing United 2019 My trip to the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center and Dallas started with an early morning breakfast with some wonderful women. The Women and Print Alliance held a breakfast event that focused on uniting and building the small percentage of women that are in our industry. A panel of women with a wide array of specialties such as print on fabric, magazines, vehicle wraps, promotional products and packaging addressed the group and provided inspiration for advancing each other in business. This breakfast also provided the opportunity to network with some other wonderful women and business owners, who travelled from all over to attend the trade show. Trade Show Displays Speaking of the trade show, you should have seen some of the trade show booths! The vendors showed up with all shapes and sizes of display, some even 2 stories, with many unique methods of attracting attention. One of my favorites was an obvious choice for many of the show attendees, where the vendor had massage chairs waiting for everyone’s tired feet. Printing United’s Trade Show Display The show itself had a booth that displayed all of the capabilities of the vendors and attendees of the show. It was amazing to see all of the different surfaces for vinyl application, one of my favorites being vinyl on brick. Don’t have brick? Why not create a brick graphic and apply it to a smooth wall? There’s a picture of that too. There was an entire section of the display that looked like a bar, with vinyl being applied to several different surfaces. There was vinyl floor graphics that made the carpet look like hard wood, the tables were covered with menus and the table itself was even wrapped about promotional material. Place a frame on the wall with a vinyl wall graphics applied to the center, and you have a professional looking wall décor or this week’s specials. Auto Wraps Of course, I’m a sucker for cool vehicles. There was no short supply of high quality vinyl and graphics to lie on the smooth curves of an Aston Martin or a monster truck. The ease and quality of application of 3M’s new wrap material is a game changer when it comes to auto wraps, and they even demonstrated that any show attendee could walk up and apply it without issues. Contour Cut Materials One of the most impactful experiences of the show was when I visited the MultiCam booth. I’ve been looking into different routing machines to bring my customers the latest technology and the best service when it comes to in-house cut materials. Some companies have told me that smooth cut rounded corners are not possible with their routers, but I didn’t accept that. At SignSmiths of Texas, we place an emphasis on quality and refuse to deliver anything less than what we would place in our own business. This is the very reason why MultiCam impressed me. They are a local company to the Dallas area, and have been around for 30 years. The representative I spoke with has been working for them for 15. They value quality and longevity of their product. We will be touring their facility soon, stay tuned. To Close… We were lucky to have the opportunity to attend this show as a local sign shop out of Wylie, Texas. Although I only spent one day there (I can’t be away from the shop much longer than that at this point), I feel as though I got a great immersion into everything new and exciting in the sign production world. I can’t wait to bring this directly to my customers. Looking for quality? Visit www.SignSmithsofTX.com or call 972-464-2926!