I visited Sign & Print Scandinavia 2015, in Kista Suburb, Stockholm Sweden

I´m an illustrator and graphic designer, and no journalist, but here is my fresh from the owen report, from the first day, 3 february. With my impressions and experiences from spending half, or more, of the day, at Sign & Print Scandinavia, in Kista, suburb just outside Stockholm in Sweden running 3-5 februari 2015. Kista is not only a suburb to Stockholm, it is also very close to the international Arlanda airport, and sometimes refered to as Sweden’s silicon valley, during the dot-com era. And Tech and computer companies flock the this suburb, at the edge o the highway E4.

My first experience of the expo/fair I got on my walk up to the expo building. I had just arrived to Kista by traveling with the subway, commuter train, which station platform resides just above and together with, the excellent and rather huge Shopping mall: “Kista centrum”. There standing on the rather busy street by the pavement surrounded by modern bold office buildings, as lunch eating people floods the streets, and snow all around, the coffee truck carriage: “Auel Handmade Coffee”. At first I thought it looking like a similar but smaller and half the size of an espresso carriage on the streets in downtown Stockholm. So small it sometimes difficult to understand someone working in there, severing people barista made coffee. But Auel Handmade Coffee truck carriage, is bigger. And a huge difference is that Auel Handmade Coffee really serve its name right. They roast and brew their coffee. All made from scratch. You can read my blog article with pictures here, for the moment just in swedish,

With a take away coffee cup in my hand, I entered the entrance hall of the expo building, signed in and took the escalator up to the where the action is. My stomach was sounding heavily, hungry like a bear, and my first thought was LUNCH. But I glanced quickly and then headed straight into the expo hall. Made some quick acquaintances and chit chatted for 10 minutes, and then felt that food couldnt wait. I was starving. The Spanish like burgers with salsa and veggies was on my radar.

It hit me after visiting this fairs predecessors the last 3-4 sign, design and print expos in the same hall, that the lack from the exhibitors of advertizing their new stuff. To make it more obvious: “here is our brand new innovations and services” and what have you. Instead I have to basically drag it out of them, somewhat. It should be their number one thing, to brag and show off, at least a bit. Instead few meet your eyes.

As a visitor to a fair, an expo, I like to feel instantly welcome. Not having to look for people. To get some attention. Although this wasnt the overall situation at all exhibitors, it was still happening.

I walked around and looked at the stands, and no one who was in the stands began to talk about their news. But I myself had to ask them about their news. “Hey, what are your news you particularly think that I should look at?”. A little light dazed, maybe even surprised, they began to tell.

One of the first booths I came to was HP. Where was this young gentleman in his gray suit jacket who was quick to catch me. As it should be. He must have worked in a retail store or something. He knew how to capture visitors interest in a nice way. And be available and rapidly informative. And not pushing or showing like a perfume salesman at Bloomingdale’s.

This is so new that it does not even exist to show yet. But demonstrated in May at the Vespa Expo, HP Page Wide, High print.

He  told me about one of HP’s news: HP Page Wide. A new technique with fixed print heads, and pigmented inks. And the crazy high speeds according to the HP guy in the booth. Moreover, the colors apparently have the same price, whether it be color or black and white. Which hopefully lowers consumption costs. Delivery will take place during November / December 2015 and demonstrated at FESPA in May 2015. And Olsonic AB is the dealer in Sweden.

See how easy it is to get the news (free advertising), if it were considered important, be approachable and talk with the visitors. Why dont more at the fair do this, it’s a little strange. At the same time I seemed to be one of the few who said I’d write a bit about the fair. Which some thought was extra fun. That more media channels was writing. And not only the biggest magazine in the print and sign business.

At the Schneidler booth, I met one from the company who  in a nice and personal and professional manner could give his personal opinion and share his own experience, as he gave a quick course in 3 minutes in print results. And showed how it looked and worked. And that the ink really “glue” properly, even though it was water based. Which has not always been the case, over time, previously according to him

HP Latex 300, Schneidlers booth

This is something that I thought came up all the time at the fair: water-based. Large, grand format, economy, appeared to be one of the main news through when I talked to people at different stands.

Batteri Kommunikation and Cap & Design / AGI LIVE kept running, every hour and every three days, a variety of live presentations on various topics. One of the topics and presentations I sat for an hour and listened to, was about ebooks, epub, epublishing. Interesting to see how the battery communications lecturer presented it all. They only use Adobe software, while myself almost exclusively use Corel‘s software, aside from Adobe Reader. Myself in my job as an illustrator and designer use CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X7 and Corel Painter 2015. And for video editing and recording of screen capture videos Corel VideoStudio Pro. etc. It’s always fun to watch and hear how others are doing, like those from Battery communication. I sometimes tutor & lecture CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT, both to Swedish companies and freelancers in Sweden, and commissioned directly from Corel Corporation in Canada, in English. Various video and webinar recordings for an international audience. And writes tutorials for CorelDRAW in English. One can always learn from others. I was there the first day that said, and he did well. As it happens, I am one of the very few in Sweden who offer to teach CorelDRAW graphics Suite, and in Stockholm these days I might be the only one. Despite many smaller print and sign companies actually use CorelDRAW quite a lot. And happily so as well.

Expand Media is a company I had the opportunity to work with at one time, when I designed, and vectorized 33 + logos to a back drop for an event a customer would have in southern Sweden. Göthes AB. Expand media was a delight to submit the job to. It must indeed be noted. It was fast and an accurate service, and everything went as it was expected of both my client and myself. Expand media’s man in the booth showed incredible poweras he lifted it almost featherweight and giant screen design. And actually the man himself I had the pleasure to work with at that time.

A little up, a little to the right, a little to the left ” Everything always weighs something,  in the end

Expand Media’s WindScape, portable media display, which could easily be packed in carry-on suitcase. Ideal for those who need to quickly get from fair to fair, or business presentation. It is new in Sweden, and apparently a success in the United States. I can understand that, given all the expo‘s they seem to have around that vast country. And Sweden having its huge share of expos and business presentations, it seem to look like a success here as well.

Digital Signage with LED and other lighting fixtures were also on the Sign & Print

Hexis The Battle at the fair competed on with smiles. These guys had to work considerably to win.

It was a nice expo/fair. I can recommend a visit the next time. What I missed was my friends Ronny and Finn who this time could not come up to Stockholm. So I had to hold the fort, eat some lunch and refreshments myself this time around.

Then, as I was leaving the expo for this year, it was a bit scary to me, for real, on way out from the show, I subconsciously thought it was the most natural thing TO OPEN That car door and drive away, but I stopped right before my hand touched the door handle and woke up. Instead for me, thepublic transportation and the subway back home though awaited.

 

Stefan Lindblad
Illustrator, graphic designer, artist
CorelDRAW Master

 




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