Portuguese printer opts for 3D printing with the support of DPLenticular’s unique range of lenticular products
Printers and brand owners today have to make sure their products stand out from the large offering of consumer brands available in the market. Over the past years, lenticular printing has positioned itself as a premium marketing tool and excels at boosting the corporate image and business profitability. This is one of the main reasons why Grafitala in Portugal has opted for 3D printing with the support of DPLenticular, the market leader in the supply of Lenstar lenticular plastic sheets and rolls, designed by Pacur Lenticular.
3D printing leads the way to success at Grafitala
Grafitala is one of the few Portuguese graphic arts companies working successfully in the area of lenticular printing. César Joana, General Manager at Grafitala states, “After researching lenticular technology for a fair amount of time, we opted for the Irish-based company, DPLenticular. With ten years experience in the lenticular market and a strong reputation as trusted leader and provider of lenticular products in Europe, we were confident the company would provide us with innovative and cutting-edge solutions. “And we were not disappointed, continues Mr. Joana. DPLenticular has given us vital support in implementing a number of processes within our organization and has greatly contributed in making 3D printing a success for our business”.
Located near Lisbon (Portugal), Grafitala is now part of the small élite of leading Portuguese companies working in lenticular printing. Founded in 1990, it has a workforce of 18 employees devoted to commercial printing and lenticular printing, as well as printing on special substrates such as polypropylene.
Lenticular printing has enabled Grafitala to support the creative needs of major advertising agencies and brand owners in the graphic arts industry. Leading clients include TMN, one of the main mobile operators in the country.
Mr. César Joana, son of Grafitala’s founder Jerónimo Joana and current General Manager was one of the mentors that brought lenticular printing to the company. The idea came about when a client asked Grafitala whether the company had heard of lenticular printing. A close analysis of their customer base revealed to Mr. Joana Senior and son that it was fairly small. Further research showed that the company was offering the same kind of services as the competition. The time had come for a drastic change and Mr. César Joana was eager to take on the challenge.
Looking back at the early days, there were some teething problems as with any new line of business, but today Grafitala is proud of the achieved results. . Mr. César Joana further comments, “It would be good to have more competition in this area. This would enable clients to compare prices when requesting a quotation for lenticular printing.”
A wide range of outstanding equipment
Grafitala holds a leading position in its home market in terms of lenticular printing and forecasts a full 50% of its output devoted entirely to lenticular printing in the near future, on account of the ever-shrinking margins in offset printing.
The printer’s most recent challenge concerns large-format digital printing. To this purpose, a new plotter has just been bought to enable the company to handle formats ranging from 1.60 to 3 metres.
According to César Joana, the objective is always the same: “We want to offer our clients innovative and attractive applications at a reasonably competitive price.”
Grafitala’s two-thousand square metre premises offer an outstanding collection of cutting-edge equipment including a 6-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 74 with special applications for various kinds of substrates, a 5-colour Heidelberg with a coating tower, and another 4-colour Heidelberg SM 52 in the 35×50 format. For the finishing work, Grafitala has a Bobst SP 102, cylindrical Heidelbergs, a 90 and a 115 Polar trimmer, a Sthal magazine line, two Sthal folding machines, two box-sealing machines, a back-glueing machine, and a good stock of supporting equipment. In the prepress area, the company has a Heidelberg platesetter, several Macs and PCs and, more recently, the Mimaki wide-format printers, plus a cutting machine and a laminator.
DPlenticular provides valuable training and support
The quality of its products, its choice in technology, training or technical assistance have all contributed to Grafitala’s growing success. But the biggest factor was the help and support provided by DPLenticular. The company’s long-standing experience as well as its customized on -site training programs and technical support enabled Grafitala to benefit from the best lenticular products and technology available in the graphic arts industry in Europe. And that is something that César Joana sees as “vitally important for providing high quality 3D printing solutions.”
Lenticular printing is certainly a very attractive business area, due to the great impact offered by the printed products, but it also requires support from reliable suppliers. In that respect, Grafitala feels that the reason for choosing DPLenticular was not so much its competitive prices as its high quality concerns. Mr. César Joana adds: “The requirements of our clients can only be met with quality. In implementing lenticular printing, Grafitala had the valuable support of DPLenticular, its lenticular products provider, channelled mainly through Daniel Pierret, Managing Director and Founder of DPLenticular. “Daniel helped us immensely with the various technical adjustments until we were able to achieve an end result that was absolutely perfect.”
All in all, the full implementation process for lenticular printing took the company six months, but the printing machines were already able to churn out 3D solutions after just three weeks.
For optimum results, the machines have to be in tip-top condition, with new blankets, perfect calibration, reliable equipment and controlled temperatures. Another important requirement is the ability to manage a large volume of lenticular sheets, as César Joana points out: “Here at Grafitala, we have an important stock of lenticular products as very often the graduation of the lenticular sheets changes as the manufacturing proceeds. That is why we always order a full batch to achieve maximum consistency in the print runs.”
Lenticular printing: a business area with international scope
As the demand for lenticular printing continues to soar, the future looks more than bright for the printing industry and even for the television and mobile phone sectors. 3D applications are already common in supermarkets today, whereby marketing and advertising managers, seduced by this innovative technology, are investing more and more resources in lenticular products.
Moving into the lenticular business has enabled Grafitala to attract new clients and many Portuguese printers now outsource work to Grafitala. The Portuguese printer is able to support its customers’ creative work and provide exciting applications to brand owners such as posters, folders, business cards or A4 sheets for points of sale. Mr. César Joana highlights the fact there is a strong drive towards printed products aimed at young people, such as school materials, backpacks, pictures and posters.
And while the Portuguese market is still relatively unreceptive to lenticular printing, this is not the case on the international scene. As a result, Grafitala services many foreign companies based in the United Kingdom and France. The company has acquired for this purpose a number of international licences and usage rights in order to provide the market with these trendy 3D printing solutions.
Until recently, many saw this technology as being very expensive, particularly when compared with conventional offset printing as it requires dedicated servers, disks, special software, and of course top-quality lenticular material, which is, in Grafitala’s case, supplied by DPLenticular. But today more and more clients are looking at the final impact of the products rather than the price.
With more and more clients turning to lenticular printing, Grafitala is only too happy to spread the word about this innovative technology, particularly in the Portuguese market. And despite its stringent requirements, Mr. César Joana is able to offer lenticular printing at a very competitive price even beyond his home country’s borders. “Our prices are so competitive that we often suggest to our customers to get quotations from Spain and to compare the prices with ours.”
Further opportunities at drupa 2008
Drupa 2008 is the perfect platform for Grafitala to witness the latest trends and developments in lenticular printing, particularly in the field of 3D large-format and digital print applications.
César Joana concludes: “Our investments in lenticular printing have been so gratifying that Grafitala would like to continue leading the way with further business investments. We are very much looking forward to visiting drupa 2008 and to meeting Daniel Pierret. It will certainly bring back good memories as it was during drupa 2004 that I had the opportunity to discover DPLenticular’s innovative and unique product solutions.”
