Print Materials
At Shelley Signs all printing and finishing is undertaken in-house. We have been on a fascinating journey over the past 15 years as traditional screen printing has been replaced with ever more efficient and high quality wide format digital printers.
To provide the best quality print possible for interpretation panels and park signs we invest heavily in our printers and upgrade every few years. This also means that we really understand durability and material issues. When we make a claim about colour fastness and material durability we know it is true because we produce and test ourselves and more importantly have experience of outdoor grade signs being in-situ for many years. We do not sub contract printing or finishing.
We currently print on a Mimaki JFX200-2513 wide format printer. This printer was installed in December 2020 and offers fantastic print quality with clear text and bright vibrant colours. The ability to print white ink provides a huge benefit for some jobs.
Interpretation panels and parks signs are a large investment and it is important that customers are happy with colours and print quality before the finished sign arrives. To this end we always supply, free of charge, a paper proof for you to sign off. While colours and quality are rarely an issue this approach shows up any problems with the artwork and commonly reveals grammatical errors that have missed on a screen or A4 size proof. The proof means
When used on our Encapsulated GRP material our print comes with a 10 year warranty against fading. This is not from lab testing but from our experience of signs being out on site and tested by real world conditions. We know from experience just how robust our finish is.
Environmental considerations are a very important consideration in the print world. We print direct to the sign material which eliminates the need for wasteful paper or vinyls and because inks are cured with cold LED lights there are no solvents involved in the process. The printer emits also zero VOCs.
For external signs and panels for interpretation and park boards we normally recommend encapsulated Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) which offers great quality, colour fastness, vandal resistance and has various recycling options. More details can be downloaded from the link below this section.
We do also work with a wide variety of other materials which commonly include Dibond, Foamex, Acrylic, Polycarbonate and various timbers, MDFs and plywood.
