Since its inception in 1970, Nimlok has become the largest global solutions provider for the trade show exhibitions display industry. The company has over 450 employees and 200 authorised distributors in 56 countries, and offers everything you could want for exhibitions from concept and design right through to construction, dismantling and storage. The Wellingborough-based Nimlok UK took delivery of the first 2.6m, Roland SolJet™ SJ-1045 printer in Europe just over a year ago.

"It’s been a fabulous system," says Garry Clement-Boggis, Nimlok UK’s Director.  "From the time it was installed it was true press and play, it’s reliable and outputs at the speed and quality we demand."

Initially it was the US office of Nimlok that recognised the potential of soft signage as a trend for exhibition design, but the company was having difficulty finding an effective solution. Garry and his team developed the answer in conjunction with i-Sub Ltd (the specialists in dye-sublimation).

"There were lots of options to print on to fabrics but they just weren’t right for us. Solvents can print on to textiles for example, but the quality is not good enough. It also requires the use of inflexible materials which are unsuitable for stretching over spaceframe structures.  Dye sublimation is a perfect process for this as you're heat setting the inks directly into the fabric rather than applying them to the surface.

"We can create effects with exhibition stands for example that just were not possible before," says Clement-Boggis. "Design that is really taking stand design into sculpture, creating structures and shapes that just weren’t possible a few years ago."

As a designer of exhibition stands Nimlok has to lead by example and its own stand created for the Exhibiting Show at London's ExCel last year really pushed the envelope. The concept behind the stand design was all about delivering beyond expectation and undergoing a creative journey. The concept was successfully translated by the use of sculpted airframe shapes covered in fabric and lit with dramatic and exciting lighting.  The orange seats on the stand were also covered with material that had messages printed on to it. Dye-sublimation printing was also used for the seating, as images and text are suffused into the fabric rather than printed on the surface, and therefore is not prone to issues such as cracking through abrasion.

Soft signage can also help to create many differing levels of ambience. Take for example, a stand that Nimlok designed and produced for business intelligence software company Amadeus.

A growing company with an excellent reputation, Amadeus wanted to send out a strong message with its exhibition stand. It also wanted to convey a sense of calmness and sincerity. Panels of printed, translucent voile were produced to create a relaxed setting, a meeting area that was separate from the public area of the stand and yet still involving.  The back wall was ingenious in that each of the translucent panels were made smaller the further they were from the venue entrance to create the impression of a much bigger stand through shifting perspective.