ARTICLE

Neon Print Is Now

By Hiroaki Shirakawa, Product Manager, Canon Europe.

an illustration of a futuristic woman

See the world in colour

Marketers are under more pressure than ever to make their campaigns ultra-impactful, provoke a reaction and increase footfall, so they’re relying on colour as one of the most powerful tools at their disposal. And as we emerge from pandemic restrictions, neon colours in particular are being used to stop audiences in their tracks1.

You only have to look at the cultural history of neon to see why it’s so prominent right now. Fluorescent colours represent fun, frivolity and excess – think 1950s Las Vegas, Miami Beach, Madonna in the 1980s, cocktails, ‘90s house parties... Neon shouts party, feel-good, carefree, dance, glamour2 – the polar opposite to the dreary, drab, anxiety-ridden experience of pandemic lockdown and social restrictions. Quite simply, brands are using neon as an antidote to troubled times.3

And it’s not only graphic design and packaging that is switching on to the power of neon, but actual products too. Designers such as Kenzo, Longchamp and Balmain4 and more mainstream fashion names including Adidas and Puma have launched 2021 collections in brights and neons, and the trend has been picked up in the beauty and home furnishing industries too.

But can print service providers confidently meet rising demand for large format promotional applications that pack the visual punch of neon? Is there anything more disappointing for a brand customer than print that falls flat compared to the original graphic design, or under-sells a product? Colour is the expression of a brand’s personality, so if the printed output doesn’t meet the buyer’s high expectations, it will most likely be rejected and it’s back to the drawing board, meaning waste, expense, lost time and an unhappy customer.

Watch this video now to see how Canon's new imagePROGRAF GP Series helps brands to come back brighter!

Be colour confident

Until recently, brands wanting to reproduce images using neon colours would have been faced with expensive, long analogue print runs and extended lead times. Now, thanks to a new generation of Canon imagePROGRAF large format printers – the GP Series – smaller print business and graphics producers, creative agencies and in-house operations can give posters and POS materials striking impact and the fizz of fluorescence. That should be welcome news for those who see the chance to surf the colour trend, add creative value, delight customers, differentiate themselves and even command a price premium5.

This highly anticipated range of large format printers is designed to bring striking campaign visuals to life, with saturated colour, coupled with superior productivity. With a choice of four models offering ten or five pigmented aqueous inks plus fluorescent pink ink, these printers are a world-first in aqueous large format printing. And with three different printing widths, businesses of all sizes can now reproduce a wider colour gamut to make eye-catching applications that really turn heads.

All printers in the imagePROGRAF GP Series are easy to use and come bundled with a variety of supporting software tools including PosterArtist, making it easy to create high-grade posters in vivid colours. Anyone using these printers can be colour confident, as these new additions to the imagePROGRAF family have been awarded the world’s first Pantone calibrated licence, making it the surest way to express the colour intended by the graphic designer.

With this astonishing colour gamut and the scope to add the extra pop of fluorescent pink, print producers and marketers have a chance to raise their colour game and produce eye-popping prints that outshine the competition.

Colour and design experts are telling us that neons and jewel-brights are here to stay, and PSPs that want to seize the opportunity need to invest in their colour capability, not risk serving up flat, disappointing prints that leave the customer cold.

Find out more about how the imagePROGRAF GP Series can help you come back brighter.

Image representing reTHINK Commercial Print guide

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