University of New Hampshire Printing and Mailing Services introduces wallnoodle adhesive, easily removable wall signage.

By Bob Neubauer

Paul Roberts thinks he may have found the next big thing for his in-plant: wallNOODLE.

For the past couple of months, University of New Hampshire Printing and Mailing Services has been having great success printing graphics and signage on this adhesive, easily removable substrate from MACtac. It uses an acrylic pressure sensitive-adhesive so customers can press it against a wall, reposition it, and remove it without leaving adhesive residue behind.

Enthusiasm for graphics printed on wallNOODLE is catching on at UNH:

Dining Services enlisted the in-plant to print a fake brick wall on wallNOODLE with its HP Designjet L2550 wide-format latex printer for a Harry Potter-themed event. The faux brick wall looked so authentic that it remains on the walls.
UNH's Paul College of Business and Economics ordered all of the signage for its new building printed on wallNOODLE. "They love the fact that they don't have to drill into walls," remarks Roberts.
The transportation office ordered 100 10x35˝ signs to place in its buses.
3,600 repositionable wall decals featuring UNH logos and Wildcat heads were printed for Housing to put in the "swag bags" given to incoming students.

"The possibilities are endless," enthuses Roberts.

The idea for using wallNOODLE grew from an inspiration Roberts had a few years ago when he marketed personalized wallpaper for students. Unfortunately, wetting and applying the wallpaper proved to be too much work for customers.

"It didn't take off," he says. "This one, I think, is going to."

Applying, removing and repositioning wallNOODLE is much easier, for one thing. And samples are already in the dorms, thanks to the swag bags.

"Now it's up to us to market it," he says.

The in-plant held a focus group to demonstrate wallNOODLE to customers.

"Everybody really liked it, so I think that kind of opened the door," remarks Julie Pardus-Oakes, operations manager.

To die-cut the graphics printed on wallNOODLE, the in-plant recently installed a Graphtec FC8000 cutting plotter, which automatically makes precise cuts around the contour of the printed area.

"It's amazing to watch," notes Roberts.

Aside from this new business, the 19-employee in-plant has also beefed up its color printing capabilities recently by adding a Canon imagePRESS C7010VP. This joins the shop's Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6500. Now short-run, high-quality jobs that were formerly printed on the Heidelberg Speedmaster 74 perfector can be output more cost effectively on the C7010VP and still have top-notch 1,200x1,200-dpi resolution.

The new printer boasts in-line saddle stitching, booklet trimming and perfect binding. Roberts is confident the perfect binding capabilities will bring in new business from staff and faculty who are self-publishing books.

"We're also hoping that perfect binding might lead to doing picture books for people," adds Pardus-Oakes.

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.

Using His Noodle