Business News

Graphispag 2011 will give the keys to applying innovation in the graphics industry

Monday 31. January 2011 - Good expectations surround Graphispag. From the 22nd to the 26th of March, Fira de Barcelona's Gran Via exhibition centre will host the twelfth edition of the most important show for the graphic arts industry in Spain and Portugal. This is a key event for finding technological solutions and products to respond to the new needs of graphic communication users. Given the range of exhibits and educational activities, this Graphispag will be the starting point for companies to face the immediate future by being innovative. Over 40,000 trade visitors are expected to attend.

“With technology, with service, with specialisation, with company alliances, with greater knowledge of clients’ needs, with professional management, with new products, with internationalisation… Innovation in the graphics sector can be applied from multiple sides but, beforehand, each company has to analyse its strong and weak points in order to determine how to be better”. With this recommendation, the president of Graphispag 2011, Miquel Heredia, summarises the practical focus of this year’s how. Therefore, the objectives of Graphispag 2011 are to show the latest graphic technology and help companies to make this reflection in order to prepare to compete in a new setting where on-line channels predominate and where graphic products have to give more value added.
Exhibits
Graphispag will showcase all the newest machinery and accessories for different printing systems and for finishing and transformation, in addition to the latest developments in digital printing and a wide range of materials, substrates and consumables. The leading suppliers in the graphics industry will be participating. 500 brands represented at some 300 stands are expected to participate, occupying 25,000 m2 in pavilions 2 and 3 of the Gran Via exhibition centre. Among the direct exhibitors, around twenty foreign companies from Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Finland, United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden will be present.
The sector with the most representation will be graphispag_digital (prepress, digital printing, screen printing and pad printing) accounting for almost 35% of exhibitors, followed by transforming and finishing systems (25%) and machinery and accessories (20%). The rest will be materials, consumables and services.

Graphispag will coincide in dates and venue with Sonimagfoto&Multimedia, Spain’s leading photography and imaging show, which will increase the range of exhibits available to graphics professionals, since they will also be able to visit this show featuring products, services and digital applications for photography, professional and consumer imaging and multimedia, which will be housed in pavilion 1.
Opportunities for growth
At the same time, Graphispag is organising a Congress and different side events on applications, technology, trends, new markets and business possibilities for graphic products in the Internet era.
At the Graphispag Congress entitled “Opportunities for growth in the graphics industry”, the international experts Frank Cost, professor at the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at the Rochester Institute of Technology (USA), and Laurel Brunner, consultant in technology and the environment for the graphics and publishing industry (United Kingdom) will explain how graphics companies from other countries are preparing, identify the applications of printing at its peak and give the keys to investing in them.
The other sessions of the Graphispag Congress will present business opportunities in specialities such as printing in packaging, small and wide format digital printing, advertising, periodical publications, the publishing market, text books and the creation of digital contents. Experts will recommend how to market new graphic products and services from the analysis of market trends, knowledge of user demands and success stories of companies in the sector. In addition to these sessions, the annual Congress of the Graphispack Association’s Agrupación de Suministradores para la Serigrafía, la Tampografía y la Impresión Digital (asSTID) and the training workshop for teachers of graphic arts will also be held.
Other side events
In addition to its own Congress, Graphispag will host other side events promoted by the sector’s organisations and companies, such as the Adobe Digital Classroom, shared with Sonimagfoto&Multimedia, which will feature Adobe software procedures and applications, both in image capture, treatment and post-production techniques and in generation of PDF documents, as well as colour management for digital printing, among other topics. Another activity common to Sonimagfoto&Multimedia will be the CongrésGràfic 2011, organised by the Colegio Oficial de Diseñadores Gráficos de Cataluña.
Two others event, which will be organised by the Instituto Tecnológico de Óptica, Color e Imagen (AIDO), are the seminar “The use of graphic standards in production processes” and the Coffee Break/Workshop, “New developments and solutions in the graphics industry”, organised jointly with Graphispag”. The companies Stora Enso, EskoArtwork and Lapeyra&Taltavull will also be organising interesting seminars related to printing packaging and labels, one of the most dynamic specialities despite the crisis.
Tribute to the printed product
This year, Graphispag is celebrating its 45th anniversary. Since 1966, the Show organised by Fira de Barcelona in collaboration with the Graphispack Association, has shown the evolution and economic importance of the graphics sector in Spain, which currently consists of almost 9,500 companies that employ 80,000 workers and has a turnover of around 10,800 million euros, according to the Federación Española de Industrias Gráficas de España (FEIGRAF).
To commemorate the occasion and emphasise that printing on paper and other substrates continues to be valid and has a promising future, Graphispag has prepared an exhibition of 46 posters, work of some of the best Spanish designers, on the values of printed products (45 for each year and 1 more that represents the continuity and confidence in the future of graphic communication). The high level of the posters shows the current creativeness of Spanish graphic design.
Graphispag will also provide the setting for the “Marco de Oro” Awards for screen-printing, pad-printing and digital printing, in recognition of the best work produced in Spain using these techniques during the last two years, and the 2010 Líderpack Awards for packing, packaging and Point of Purchase Advertising (POPA) organised annually by Hispack and the Graphispack Association.