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Get on the trend of paper-board applications

Perhaps the most buzzed ‘word’ across the industry nowadays must be ‘green’. Whether in printing technologies, inks, consumables or media, eco-friendliness is the most concerned and environment-friendly paper-board is one such printing material which sign makers start taking on for its various advantageous characteristics. SIGN & GRAPHICS observes how signage players across the globe are switching to paper-board applications.

Certain added advantages which paper-board has against other sign making materials are its eco-friendliness, light weight and recyclable. Paper-boards are compatible with various printing technologies and often used even in making varied range of display or decorative items for interior/indoor environment. Popularity of this new printing material began in Europe and gradually spreading over other parts of the globe. In the current scenario, most of the popular paper-boards are coming from Sweden, Finland, South Africa and USA.

Promising future

Industry experts opine that paper-board printing is now opening up a bright future for extensive signage and display applications in indoor segment. However, exact areas and methods which sign makers can exploit using this ‘green’ printing media are not yet sufficiently materialised. Eco-friendliness is the most added advantage of paper-board against acrylic, foam-board, flex and other materials which should be incinerated and bound to release toxic carbon dioxide during incineration process. But it is safe in case of paper-board which is made of 80 percent recycled papers. According to a research finding, recycling one tonne of waste papers can protect 21 trees for more than 30 years, reduce three sq m of landfill and save 30,000 liter of water.

Paper-boards are quite user-friendly as sign makers handle these materials in their workshop in a very handy manner. These materials are compatibly designed to cut on any digital cutting machine. There will be no distortion and debris while trimming on digital cutters. Most of the paper-boards are easy to recycle because of their 100 percent eco-friendly nature and easy to dismantle any assembly for putting into recycling process.

Varied range

Some international companies in the current signage market are successfully producing paper-boards of varied textures and qualities. Popularly acclaimed among the players include Re-board (Sweden), D-Board (Finland), X-Board/Xanita (South Africa), EZ-Board (South Korea), Falcon (USA) and others. The boards are available in varied colour range, such as grey, white, black, etc. A strong point of paper-board is its roughness developed through special production technology. Surface of any paper-board is well treated to perform excellent colour development and rich colour sense on various printing technologies which eventually makes this media perfectly designed to craft stunning interior props and others.

Eco-honeycomb board is also a variety of paper-board which is called so because the inner parts of the materials are shaped like bee hive. Such kind of paperboard is designed with continuous form of hexagon columns which eventually makes it robust enough a load of five tonnes on one square metre. EZ-Board from South Korea is this honey-combed type of paper-board. When it comes to listing some drawbacks which paper-boards usually have include cutting difficulty during fabrication process. V-cutting of this type of paper-board is difficult due to its bee-hive shaped structure. So, there are paper-boards designed in wave shape to sort out this problem. And sign makers should be aware about paper-board’s weakness to water.

Designs and compatibility

UV printing, digital finishing and strong sense of design are sheer requirement of a sign maker who plans to venture into the world of paper-board signage or display. Certainly, one needs to be good at design before indulging into printing and cutting process using efficient equipments or machines. Let’s pick up an example, if a sign maker plans for a slide using paper-board, what all require in a sequential manner is designing, cutting, assembling and printing. And rest is the magic of paper-board!


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