Wide format printer reseller, CWE Solutions has launched a new premium media brand called Expanse, which is aimed at wide format printers and signmakers who need optimum results. All Expanse medias are fully tested and industry proven – and having conducted rigorous testing in the field, have delivered a reliable, consistent and trouble free performance.
The launch range is made up of seven vinyls, two poly laminates, a pop up and a roll up material. All medias come with ICC profiles for the most common wide format printers in use today with particular focus on the HP Latex printer range.
The vinyls include a five year premium poly-vinyl designed for outdoor durable graphics and a premier Cast Vinyl – Expanse Premier. Specially developed for the vehicle wrapping market, Expanse Premier is a 50 micron gloss white cast film with Micro-Air bubble releasing system and tinted, repositionable and permanent pressure sensitive adhesive. The Micro-Air system allows installers to achieve fast installation while maintaining a high enough tack to ensure long term bond. It is made of premium quality cast face stock with a lay flat liner. Premier’s adhesive system is designed to provide exceptional opacity, along with easy installation. It also provides superior conformability around rivets, curves, and contours.
Graham de Kock, commercial director of CWE Solutions, said: ‘We have has always offered a premium range of medias to ensure our customers’ needs for quality results are met and exceeded. There are certain medias that in the past we, as a highly knowledgeable supplier, would like to have adapted to further improve the properties and output. By creating our own brand, these adjustments can be made bespoke to our customers’ requirements. Purchasing through a predefined channel can also have adverse cost implications and to overcome this we have negotiated with the biggest manufacturers to have products manufactured under a plain label to keep the cost to our customers as low as possible without sacrificing on product quality.
‘Product quality for wide format media in the UK has been suffering with increasingly low quality, cheap products being imported from the Far East. With these cheap imports there is a natural lack of consistency from roll to roll and there are ethical, as well as health and safety, issues that we were concerned about. As a result of years of research and development, CWE is excited to be launching the first phase of the Expanse media portfolio that is of the highest standards both in terms of printed results and its manufacture to ensure that the range will not only meet but exceed our customers high standards.’
