Grand format is bigger, better, spectacular and versatile. By Maura Keller Architects, trade show organizers,event planners, and retail operators have one thing in common: they strive to capture the attention of their potential audience through powerful visual messages. Using wide and grand format elements can inform, delight and inspire their audience like never before. Making [...]

JM Technical Textiles has developed Mediatex® Lightbox fabric to meet the specific demands of printed images used in backlit applications. Mediatex Lightbox fabric is different because of its special coating. Conventional fabrics simply let the light shine through the material, causing colors to fade. However, the micro-porous coating of Mediatex Lightbox intensifies the colors’ brilliance. [...]

By Barb Ernster Eventscape Inc. has developed an international reputation for incorporating trendsetting designs into customized landmark structures, merging branding and architecture in bold new ways. The company creates 3-D, visually appealing environments with custom-made frames; cladding and tensile structures; and special features for architectural, retail, hospitality, exhibit, and event applications. It utilizes fabrics, polycarbonates, [...]

By Janet Preus It’s one thing to print grand format graphics; it is quite another to install them. Roger Leary, who owns Liftec Sign and Crane Inc. in Montgomery, Minn., says that 95 percent of the companies that print grand format graphics don’t hang them. He was the man responsible for installing the 34-foot-by-90-foot graphics [...]

Fabric Graphics advisory committee members share their ideas. Start with the products you already have. Related fields, same product. Use your existing expertise while adapting to markets that currently use another form of the product. For example, if your product line is aimed at the outdoor market, what about marine or tents? What similarities exist [...]

From powering high-speed trains to creating new urban apparel, specialty fabrics are setting new global standards. From the editors of TUT (Technical Usage Textiles) magazine in Paris. High-speed composites A composite insulating horned-slipper holder was successfully used on the high-speed V150 train, part of France’s TGV rail service. On April 3, 2007, the V150 set [...]

The Manufacturer’s Association of Israel (MAI) sounded an alarm this summer about the demise of the textile industry there. Textile exports fell 3.3 percent to $250 million in the first half of 2008, while Asian textile imports rose 18.6 percent to $656 million. The Affiliation of Textile and Fashion Manufacturers reported that 850 textile employees [...]

Pakistan’s Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) provided relief for its struggling textile sector with a package allowing a 7.5 percent duty drawback on total imports of PTA used in making polyester fabric. The ECC also is considering a comprehensive package for the Gwadar Export Processing Zone (GEPZ), including a 10-year tax holiday, incentives to investors establishing [...]

On December 31, the U.S. will scrap quotas on textiles, and as that deadline approaches, U.S. Customs is talking tough with the Chinese. Customs charges that China illegally declared that 1,000 containers of goods originated in other countries, when they came from China and exceeded that nation’s import quota for 2008. The U.S. could charge [...]

Leading auto manufacturers such as BMW and Volkswagen are in discussion with Stanley Lifestyle Ltd., Chennai, India, to ramp up its production of upholstery-grade leather, following General Motors and Ford into the Indian leather market. Stanley entered into a joint venture with an Italian firm to start a tannery in Ranipet, India’s leather hub, to [...]