Businesses rely on their graphical presence for marketing, advertisements, and customer retention. Maintaining the durability of these graphics comes down not only to the type of material and substrate chosen, but also to the measures of protection that businesses invest in when creating their graphics.
Digital lamination services provided by professionals can help your business create long-lasting graphics that stand up to wear and frequent use.
To help you better understand, here’s an overview of how lamination enhances the quality and durability of advertising and marketing purposes, including how lamination works, methods by which it improves the longevity of your graphics, and other advantages.
What Is Lamination?
Lamination is the process of sealing a substrate such as paper, cardboard, cardstock, or other similar materials between a plastic PVC coating. This coating is thin and transparent, though it comes in a variety of styles, such as glossy and matte. Lamination can be applied using heat, adhesives, or other methods.
Once lamination has been applied to a substrate, the printed material is no longer exposed to external factors such as moisture, temperature, and UV radiation. Despite its ability to significantly increase the lifespan and quality of digitally printed materials, lamination is an affordable and accessible option for businesses of all sizes.
However, this process should be approached with the assistance of a professional laminating company, as their quality suffers without industry-specific tools.
How Lamination Enhances Quality and Durability
Lamination is an effective method of increasing advertising efforts by prolonging the longevity of marketing materials allowing businesses to avoid investing repeatedly in the same marketing graphics. Some of the reasons why lamination is so advantageous for businesses include:
1. Moisture Protection
Because lamination is created from plastic PVC material (or sometimes polyester), it is inherently waterproof. This means any marketing graphics that are laminated are safe from the risk of damage from rain and high humidity; water will just roll off the surface of the print.
Additionally, basements and other moisture prone areas can be used for long-term storage of laminated graphics without worrying that the materials will curl, warp, lose color, or leach ink onto surrounding items.
2. UV Defense
One of the most substantial hazards to marketing materials both indoors and outdoors is the presence of UV radiation. Sunlight and some types of interior lighting create ultraviolet rays, which over time may damage even high-fidelity graphics made from digital images.
The plastic material of a laminated print offers protection against these UV rays, which prevents marketing graphics from losing their color or becoming unreadable over time.
Whether displayed in a window, used as an outdoor showcase, or distributed to customers on a sunny day, digital materials last substantially longer under ultraviolet radiation when they have a plastic covering.
3. Damage Shielding
While the plastic covering on a laminated digital print is thin, it is highly resilient to multiple types of damage, including scratches, dents, tears, and curling. Because digital lamination graphics are meant to be displayed in close proximity to interested customers, it is reasonable to expect they will need to withstand some amount of contact with other people.
This includes carts that may run into your marketing materials in a store, dust and debris if marketing materials are displayed outside, and scratches or other damage sustained when storing graphics off-season. The tough plastic resists bending and ripping.
4. Aesthetic Advantages
In addition to the numerous physical advantages that lamination provides for digital graphics for businesses, it also enhances their aesthetic value. Lamination is available in a variety of forms, the most common of which is glossy.
Glossy lamination shines under direct light, but it does not interfere with the ability to read text on the graphic. An additional option is a matte finish, which removes the gloss in exchange for a slightly flat surface.
This material is pleasant to the touch and is considered to be of a higher quality than glossy prints, coming at a slightly higher price point as a result. At the top of the lamination quality range sits soft touch lamination, considered a premier product with a price tag to match.
Soft touch lamination is silky under the fingers and is best suited for uses in which the graphics will be physically handled by customers, prospective partners, and other interested parties.
Simple to read, it does not obscure any visuals or text despite its upgraded surface texture.
Get Digital Lamination Services from the Pros
The marketing and graphic materials that businesses use are critical elements of their success and long-term profits. To ensure your business uses its money wisely, it is wise to partner with a printing service that offers professional lamination, custom graphics, and other marketing solutions.
The experts at Tree Towns are proud to offer a large suite of customizable graphics options, from acoustic wall art to personalized wall coverings displaying high-fidelity logos and more. Contact Tree Towns to discuss your vision and how digital lamination can help to preserve your graphics.