BARCELONA, Spain, 05 January 2009 - HP today announced that Splash!Events, a full service exhibit design and fabrication company, has expanded its capability to produce sustainable event signage with the addition of an HP Designjet L65500 Printer featuring HP Latex Printing Technology.

By integrating this printer into its workflow, Splash intends to offer "green" solutions across all three disciplines that it services - trade show exhibits, corporate and retail environments, and branding of large corporate events.

"With the HP Designjet L65500, Splash will be able to grow its business by offering customers an environmentally sustainable option for printing indoor and outdoor signage," said Santiago Morera, vice president and general manager, Large Format Printing, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. "At HP, we are dedicated to continued innovation to provide solutions that help our customers expand their offerings and, ultimately, grow their bottom line."

Recently, Splash had the chance to put the HP Designjet L65500 to the test by producing marketing collateral and signage for the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco. In 2008, Nike began a multi-year process to make its events greener and the Nike Women's Marathon was the first event to incorporate better printing and recycling methodologies for race course signage, marketing collateral and expo tents.

Some of the signage for the event was printed using HP Latex Inks and a variety of recyclable media substrates, including HP HDPE Reinforced Banner, HP DuPont™ Tyvek® Banner and HP Photo-realistic Poster Paper. Splash expects that 90 percent of marketing collateral and signage for the 2009 event will be produced with HP Latex Inks and other printing methods that have less impact on the environment.

"We are always searching for ways to provide more environmentally sustainable solutions for event branding and exhibit graphics projects and HP Latex Printing Technologies seem to be the perfect solution," said Regan Mahoney, general manager, Splash! San Francisco. "Our clients are very particular about colour accuracy, resolution and durability. More and more, they are also demanding green solutions. This is the most significant development we have seen for large-format printing."

Splash also plans to use the HP Designjet L65500 to produce signs and banners for corporate event projects with Cisco Systems, IBM and Charles Schwab.

The 104-inch wide HP Designjet L65500 Printer is the first of a new category of large-format signage printers with HP Latex Inks and HP Wide Scan Printing Technology. Print service providers can expand their offerings with this single, versatile printer that can produce a variety of applications while delivering quality and durability at print speeds of approximately 79m² /hr (846 ft²/hr) and indoor-quality prints at up to 34 m²/hr (368 ft²/hr.⁽¹⁾)

Prints produced with HP Latex Inks are odorless⁽²⁾ and emit extremely low levels of volatile organic compounds. Additionally, no special ventilation is required to meet occupational exposure limits and there are no requirements for air discharge permits, facilitating an improved printing environment.⁽³⁾

More information about Splash! Events is available at www.splashevents.com . More information about HP Designjet printers and the HP Graphic Solutions portfolio is available at http://www.hp.com/go/graphicarts.

About HP 

HP, the world's largest technology company, simplifies the technology experience for consumers and businesses with a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com/.

⁽¹⁾ Outdoor-quality speed based on printing using full width (2.64 m/104 in) in two-pass unidirectional print mode; indoor-quality speed based on printing using full width (2.64 m/104 in) in five-pass unidirectional print mode. Five-pass print mode is only available on self-adhesive vinyl substrates.
⁽²⁾ Printers using HP Latex Inks use internal heaters to dry and cure the latex polymer film. Some substrates may have inherent odor.
⁽³⁾ Special ventilation is not required to meet U.S. OSHA requirements on occupational exposure to VOCs from HP Latex Inks. Ventilation equipment installation is at the discretion of the customer - no specific HP recommendation is intended. Typically no air discharge permitting required with inks that emit extremely low levels of VOCs. Customers should consult state and local requirements and regulations.

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Jonathan Graham, HP
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Carlyn Samuel
Bespoke for HP
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carlyn@bespoke.co.uk

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