Unit 30 - D1

 D1 - Describe and evaluate the ongoing developments in these printing/output techniques:

There are developments going on in lots of technical machines nowadays, especially things to do with I.T, there are developments going on for Vinyl cutters and laser cutters to make signage a lot better. This is something that is good to develop because there are lots of signs such as direction signs and symbols that are always needed, and when they are developing on these sorts of things, it makes it easier for us to understand and use in our everyday way of living. Vinyl cutters and laser cutters are really good for signage, they make everything nice and bold so everyone can understand and it can cut to basically any size, so to keep developing on these kind of things is really important because they will be able to make new designs that they can cut out for more things that need improving on, such as road signs for example.

There are other ongoing developments in printing techniques such as Inkjet & wide format printing for bitmap displays and posters. They have developments such as the Acuity LED 1600, this is a wide- format UV inkjet printer used for producing large posters and winder displays. In the development of this, they have brought out a FUJIFILM technology group; this includes chemical technology and image processing technology to make the final image more professional and clear when it is being printed off. I think these developments are really good to improve on because if they aim to build an effective inkjet printer, then everything will combine together to make a high image quality. This will also make printing a lot easier because no one will have to worry about the quality of the image when it comes out the printer because it will be in such high quality. The only thing I could think of that would hinder this development would be the cost of it all, as the image resolution of printing gets better, the price will increase which could make it a negative, but other than that, this is a great technical advantage to have when developing it.

Laser printer for leaflets and flyers is also a printing technique that is being developed on all the time. Some would say that this way of printing is better than inkjet printing because laser printer is a digital printer which produces specifically high quality printing. A laser beam projects an image of the page onto an electrically charged rotating drum coated with selenium or, more common in modern printers. Making developments in this printing technique will be really useful because it is quicker than inkjet printing and is cheaper in the long run. Also the sizes that laser printing can cut out in are larger than other printing techniques so this would be very useful to improve on.

I think all of these techniques have affecting the creation of graphics because it allows us to do more things and create more images on larger items. Without all of these techniques, we wouldn’t be able to make things such as a road sign so I think it is very important that we keep making developments on these types of things so then we can keep making more things that we didn’t think we could. Technology keeps getting better each year, so having these printing/output techniques on the go all the time will make sure that we can keep creating more graphics. I think this has mainly affected the creation of graphics in the way we make them because road signs are really important to everyone, and the different sizes that they can be made nowadays is really useful to everyone.