By Olivia Cahoon
Part 1 of 2
Companies use short-term retail spaces, also known as pop-up shops, to build interest and promote products or services. With a short amount of time to attract consumers, pop-up shops require eye-catching, short-term graphics. Print service providers (PSPs) like Dynamite Digital offer pop-up shop signage including banners, floor graphics, and wall décor.
Established in 2003 as Advanced Digital Printing Lab, Dynamite Digital started in San Francisco, CA. It originally offered large format basics including adhesive vinyl, banner vinyl, posters, and rigid substrates.
Today, the company has two locations comprising of 10,000 square feet with 13 employees. Dynamite Digital expanded its services to include fabrics, silicone edge graphics, environmentally friendly substrates, and graphic installation. Its core clients are in the greater Bay Area including Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, CA.
Digital Services
Dynamite Digital produces and installs backlit graphics, banners, banner stands, corporate interiors, cut-vinyl graphics, dimensional signage, direct to substrate rigid graphics, event displays, point of purchase graphics, transit graphics, wall murals, and window graphics.
The company started using digital print technology when it began in 2003. It currently operates on all HP, Inc. printers including several HP Latex 365 presses and a HP Scitex FB500 flatbed. “I’m not sure how we ended up exclusively with HP as we have had several different brands over the years, but we have had great results with latex which has steered us toward HP,” says Siavash Almeida, online marketing manager and production assistant, Dynamite Digital.
With its presses, Dynamite Digital uses HP Latex and UV-curable inks. It prints on a variety of substrates from 3A Composites USA, 3M Commercial Solutions, HP Large Format Media, Packaging Corporation of America, Ultraflex Systems, Inc., and United Industries. Almeida offers, “our brand selections are always based on what materials are the most reliable, available, and priced.”
Dynamite Digital uses Adobe Creative Cloud, ONYX RIP, and ONYX ProductionHouse software for digital printing. Its digital finishing capabilities include a SEAL laminator from GBC part of ACCO Brands, a Mimaki USA, Inc. vinyl cutter, and the Esko CNC Kongsberg V for dimensional lettering and signage.
Pop-Up Signage
Currently, five percent of Dynamite Digital’s work is for pop-up shops. Almeida offers, “we have noticed them becoming more of a trend in the last few years.”
Pop-up shops use a lot of printed media to make an empty space appear as a retail store. “Printed graphics offer pop-up shops a lightweight solution to branding their space that is very quick to setup and teardown—that’s a great selling point,” he explains.
However, pop-up shops require a lot of preparation to meet the customer’s deadline. This includes open communication between the designers, who are often trying to fit a lot into a small space, and the print shop. “It all depends on if the designer finalizes the artwork well before the installation date,” says Almeida.
One of the most common requests for clients seeking pop-up shop signage is adhesive vinyl. According to Almeida, adhesive vinyl allows pop-up shops to make rented space look like it belongs to them. Adhesive vinyl covers a range of surfaces and offers a professional appearance that is easily removed. “Other applications used in pop-up shops would be window graphics and dimensional logos, typically cut from foam substrates to cut down on cost.”
Recently Dynamite Digital has noticed more established brands setting up pop-up shops. This has created a demand for vinyl graphics and elaborate setups with higher budgets. “Pop-up graphics are often big and bold—there’s only a small amount of time to attract business so the outside of the shops need to really stand out,” says Almeida. “It’s very easy to go big with vinyl. Vinyl wall murals or large cut vinyl graphics also give customers a great background to take photos in front. Pop-up shops love this because they know those photos will get shared over the internet, which means more future business for them.”
Software Appears
Recently, software company Brainrider approached Dynamite Digital for pop-up shop signage. The client planned to setup a pop-up shop in correlation with a Salesforce event that attracts technology industry workers from around the world. Brainrider’s goal was to use the Salesforce event as a marketing technique with its pop-up shop placed beside the event for three days.
The pop-up shop location was a 400 square foot retail space located inside the Westfield Mall in San Francisco, CA. The client requested floor graphics leading customers into the shop, which were printed on 3M laminated film with floor guard. They also requested wallcoverings to display product information and marketing.
Dynamite Digital created the wallcoverings and floor graphics on its HP presses using low-tack adhesive. “The inside walls were meant to be informative display graphics that explained their services to customers,” says Almeida.
Brainrider also requested a display of 100 soup cans wrapped in blue and white vinyl graphics. According to Almeida, this was the most outstanding aspect of the job. “It was definitely a first for us and we had to go to a local grocery store and buy 100 cans of sliced pineapple.”
The project took nearly three weeks for designing and planning. Printing and finishing took four days and installation was done in several hours. Almeida says Brainrider was extremely pleased with the shop’s final outcome and even went so far as to praise the print provider’s work on social media.
Popping Up
There are several benefits for PSPs catering to pop-up shop signage including repeat customers and high budgets. Part two of this two-part series features a PSP that transformed a current retail space into a pop-up service center.
Click here to read part two of this exclusive online series, Temporary Signage.
Click on the link above to get more information on the vendors mentioned in this article.
May2018, Digital Output
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