Ipex seems like an age ago now, but I'm still in the process of assimilating and revisiting the information picked up at the show. It'll probably take me until Drupa.

Anyhow, as part of an occasional series on "interesting things Jo saw at Ipex and really must write about", I give you Fujifilm's Solvent WonderTack substrate.

It's available through Fujifilm Sericol's Euromedia wide-format wing. I am experimenting with the sheet I picked up at Ipex as I type, and even though it has become somewhat crumpled after being stuffed into my bag of Ipex knick-knacks, I have just successfully stuck it to various surfaces at Francis Towers. Essentially it's self-adhesive, but without any adhesive. Brilliant! The back side of the polypropylene substrate has a clever micro-pore surface so it's effectively covered in tiny suckers. For some reason this makes me think of a gecko's feet - perhaps it's an idea borrowed from nature?

The end result being it will stick very nicely to smooth surfaces such as glass, metal, appliances, gloss paint, etc and is also repositionable. It doesn't take much of a leap to realise that that makes it perfect for point-of-sale applications where store staff may not be blessed with the skills and patience required to apply traditional adhesive decals. And you can even rinse off any accumulated fluff that builds up during repeated use to restore the original tack, which is the point my sample piece has got to so I will now go and give it a wash.