Imagine a magazine cover whose ink forms new patterns under your touch, a bus stop poster with a Facebook ‘Like’ button, or a gig flyer that uses NFC to stream the band’s latest single to your phone. Thanks to printed electronics, these are all becoming a reality.
The ever-evolving field of ‘printed electronics’ includes several technologies, but the sector most interesting to designers is where conductive inks containing silver or carbon are used to incorporate circuitry into paper or other thin, flexible materials. When combined with tiny (around 2mm wide) batteries and other miniaturised components, these make printed products interactive in a seamless way that’s light years ahead of the traditionally bulky and breakage-prone electronics found in your average singing greetings card.
“Printed electronics have an advantage in terms of robustness as the components are fundamentally flexible, so they withstand handling more than conventional electronics, ” says Scott White, CEO of Cambridge firm PragmatIC Printing, who have created logic circuits that are almost completely transparent.
Novalia printed electronics being used in a paper fire engine and pianoHigh-volume printing
Novalia, also based in Cambridge, develops intellectual property for printed electronics that can be used with standard flexographic or offset litho processes. “We’re looking at making things with high-volume printing processes that are available everywhere, rather than with a special machine in a clean room, ” explains company director Kate Stone.
For Stone, combining the technology with conventional reprographics is down to finding a printer with the right attitude. “There’s nothing they do that’s out of the ordinary in terms of equipment; it’s more that it takes some time and effort to develop a workflow that works for this and get it right.”
Paper, ink and LEDs
Similarly, although paper companies have jumped on board to develop products that work well with the conductive inks – ArjoWiggins launched one named Powercoat in December 2012 – Stone explains that Novalia has been focusing upon making the technology suitable for everyday paper types: “There are certain papers that we know will work well, but it’s not like a special type that only grows on the moon, ” she says. “We’ve done trials with combinations of paper, ink and press to find out what works, and we try to keep everything as normal as possible.”
Both Stone and White see great potential for designers to put printed electronics to inventive new uses in marketing and point-of-sale materials. “One thing we’re seen interest in is for promotional inserts, ” says White, “where the product manufacturers want to engage with the consumers, so they draw them in by getting them to answer certain questions, and then targeting products to them.”
