7 Benefits of Choosing a Mulit-Purpose Substrate for your Wide-Format Projects.

What is the most precious commodity in the world? Time. This is one reason we’re seeing more and more use of multi-purpose pressure-sensitive products for wide-format projects. Multi-purpose materials offer a range of benefits that can improve turnarounds, save money, and have sustainability benefits, too! Let’s take a look.

1. Save time. Here at Full Sail, when we can use a multi-purpose material, we can purchase larger rolls and use the same material for multiple projects, all while producing the same high-quality output you expect. This means fewer changeovers for our press operators, less downtime on the press, and less start-up waste. Sure, this has benefits for us, but it has benefits for you, too. When we’re more efficient, you get your jobs faster.

2. Reduce chances for error. You might not think that your choice of substrate can impact the error rate, but it does! Here at Full Sail, you’ll find that we don’t make many mistakes; we’re human, and sometimes mistakes happen. When you reduce complexity, you reduce the chances of error even further. Multi-use substrates reduce complexity. For any print job, many people are involved from start to finish. Reducing the number of SKUs in the warehouse reduces complexity for everyone touching the job: those handling purchasing, reordering inventory, and on the shop floor, tracking inventory and handling materials. When there are fewer moving parts, the chances for mistakes go way down. (Not to mention that mistakes slow down the process, so fewer mistakes help with that whole time thing.)

3. Save money. When we save money, that keeps our costs down, too. With multi-purpose materials, we can more easily meet minimum purchase requirements and enjoy volume pricing benefits, another way that we help keep your costs low.

4. Better color matches. One of the amazing things about wide-format production is the number of different surfaces you can cover. Whether you produce trade show banners, wayfinding signage, or floor graphics, wide-format projects can be installed on various surfaces, including walls, windows, and floors. If it’s a flat surface, we can cover it! You could spec different substrates optimized for each substrate, but every substrate impacts the color’s appearance in the final product. Various chemical compositions and slight color differences all impact how color is replicated. We have a lot of experience ensuring color match across different substrates, but color match becomes a breeze when you use the same substrate for multiple projects. Any time you can take complexity and variability out of the process, you’ll have more consistency in the final result.

5. Great adhesion. A multi-purpose product is designed to adhere to a wide range of surfaces. It is also designed to resist exposure to UV, chemicals, abrasion, and moisture better than economy vinyl. You might not think you need that level of performance, but with multi-purpose substrates, it comes with the territory. All marketing materials will adhere, whether they are applied to stainless steel, painted metal, styrene, painted wood, smooth painted non-vinyl wallboard, glass, indoor floor surfaces, and more.

Think that doesn’t matter? Think about the different conditions your projects could potentially be exposed to. Indoor conditions, outdoor conditions. Exposure to UV ?and weather. If it’s a floor graphic, what is the level of foot traffic? Will the project be exposed to chemicals? You could spec different substrates for every application. Or you could use one multi-use substrate with outstanding adhesion for all of your applications. Life is complicated enough. Keep it simple.

It’s important to consider these factors when evaluating your overall cost. A lower-cost substrate might seem to lower your costs initially, but if it doesn’t adhere to the surface properly, what are those “savings” really worth? especially if the substrate doesn’t perform to expectations or has to be reprinted to get the performance characteristics you need.

6. More flexibility When fewer different materials take up space on our warehouse racks, we can more easily accommodate customers who may place small orders only two to three times per year. Streamlined inventory management means more flexibility for you.

7. Sustainability benefits Then there are the sustainability benefits. When we order larger rolls of the same material, we receive fewer shipments, which means a lower transportation carbon footprint and less packaging waste. There will be times, however, when a multi-use product won’t fit the bill. Some niche applications, such as optical clarity on a clear window graphic, may require a specialty product. But, multi-use products are suitable for various advertising applications, including walls, windows, shelves, signage, floor graphics, and vending graphics. So, before you spec your substrates for your next campaign, consider using a single multi-use substrate for your projects. You’ll save time and money, reduce the chances of error, and be kinder to the planet, too.