Welcome to 2026: Signs Look Good for Display Graphics
- graphicartsadvisors
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
This article originally appeared on the WhatTheyTh!nk website on Jan 8th, 2026
2025 is thankfully in the books, and as we look ahead to 2026, what are the signs and portents for display graphics?
Some of the current, prevailing trends have been covered ad nauseam, especially in my Technology Outlook feature back in October. But are there any other trends we should be paying attention to?
Shifting Taxonomy
We talk of “display graphics and signage” or, more generically, “wide format,” but companies in the overall wide-format graphics market is starting to settle into some specific categories of output and applications.
In his year-end round-up of 2025 M&A activity, M&A guru Mark Hahn identified how display graphics and signage companies are reorganizing themselves into different sub-categories:
Retail Display— Companies that primarily produce graphics for, well, retail environments. This category also includes companies that produce trade show exhibits.
Grand Format—Companies that focus on event, architecture, and experiential graphics. (Time was, “grand format” was primarily a size category, referring to output greater than 72 in. wide.)
Fleet Graphics—Companies that primarily serve the transportation industry, as well as wide-format printing providers that focus on vehicle wraps.
Home Décor—Companies that produce wallcoverings and other such materials.
Reprographics—Essentially, companies serving the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry.
Banners and Boards—A catchall category that includes companies that produce “generic” wide-format printing.
There is, as one would expect, some cross-pollination between and among those categories.
He also identifies an “emerging” application/sector called “experiential graphics,” although I’d say it’s not so much emerging as it is transforming. I started writing about experiential (or environmental) graphics back in 2018, where it was a subset of home décor—or, more specifically, office décor. It was perhaps best thought of as the intersection of signage and décor, including interior wall graphics, window graphics (both outdoor-facing as well as interior windows, such as conference rooms and offices), wayfinding signage, decorative accents like graphics applied to elevator doors, and, basically, graphics added to virtually any surface—maybe even employees.
These types of office installation projects stalled during the pandemic as work from home became common (or mandated). As we have emerged from the pandemic, what can be called experiential graphics has evolved to include, says Hahn, “tak[ing] those graphics to the next level, adding structural elements, sound systems, lighting, among other added features that create a comprehensive and immersive brand or entertainment experience.”
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