CMYUK illuminate PressOn for American Apparel retail project
The international fashion retailer American Apparel first approached PressOn in 2006 when they opened their first store in Carnaby Street. They required bespoke retail graphics in short quantities for their UK brand, PVC banners for internal use. They also branded the external fascia and windows of the stores using acrylic signage and self-adhesive vinyl window graphics.
Since then, American Apparel have invested in another 8 stores across the UK and PressOn have installed much larger Foamex and digital wallpaper graphics in key locations in-store. These retail graphics are changed quarterly throughout the stores. American Apparel is able to do this because of the cost effective solutions PressOn offer and their ability to provide a highly experienced installation team across the UK.
PressOn recently provided retail solutions for American Apparel’s Kings Cross London store comprising of two LED lightboxes with graphics printed on their EFi VUTEk QS2 Pro with VUTEk approved UV ink and using Berger Samba textiles supplied by UK distributor CMYUK.
The framing system recommended by CMYUK was the Spirit-TEX™ aluminium framing system and included an LED lightsheet. Spirit-TEX™ solves many of the common challenges in producing textile displays and is compatible with both dye-sub and UV or Latex printing. There’s a greater tolerance in sizing, a common problem with some rigid framing, allowing users to change graphics with ease whenever the need arises or the season dictates.
The Berger Samba textile was printed on the VUTEk printer by PressOn and the edges stitched with silicone Kadar edging using their Solent Texsew Pro Conveyorline sewing machine.
Lauren Harrold of PressOn said: “With the help of CMYUK we recommended a new lightbox LED system for American Apparel for their window graphics at the Kings Cross store. Previously their graphics were glued into an LED frame and an installation team was needed every time the graphics were changed. CMYUK recommended the Spirit-TEX system that enabled PressOn to print graphics on Samba textiles, stitch silicone to the edges of the fabric and then “pop” the graphics into place.”
Graphics can now be easily removed and replaced as required by American Apparel staff without the need for installation teams to visit, which they estimate will give them a saving of around £500 per installation every time they need to change the graphic.
According to Harrold, the Samba textile is a popular choice with PressOn for two main reasons; it is fire rated to British Standards which is extremely important to retailers and print buyers of POS and was particularly important to American Apparel and secondly, by using Samba, PressOn can either choose to use UV or latex inks to print as it works with both technologies.
To learn more about PressOn visit www.presson.co.uk
For more information on CMYUK, visit www.cmyuk.com