Colour Your Worlde

Everyone wants to personalize their home environment. On a budget it can be hard to do. Given the selection of affordable home furnishings on the market, it often means that your house can look identical your friends house because you both bought your decorations at the same store. With our Océ Arizona 350GT direct to substrate printer, creating a one of a kind window treatment is possible.

In the January issue of The Big Picture magazine they ran a feature article discussing the companies that use machines with white ink. Their cover is reminiscent of the Beatles White Album. Like the Beatles were to music, machines with white ink are revolutionizing the market.

Our Océ Arizona 350GT is widely recognized by the industry as having a superior print quality, and has a white ink option. Big Picture approached us to participate in their article, we were happy to extol the virtues of our equipment and company. Here are some excepts from the article.

Making White Noise - by Jake Widman

The company's latest acquisition: an Océ 350GT Arizona flatbed printer, which is versatile, Cook adds. "We have the roll-to-roll option and can print up to 86-inches wide, and we can print on the flat substrate up to two-inches thick. With the white-ink option, it opens up new markets. We do a lot of work on supplied materials, and artists bring in ceramic coaster or tiles and we output images onto those."

Cook recently called on the 350GT's white-ink capabilities in a job for an auction house dedicated to classic and high-end automobiles. When a car is sold, the auction house has a photographer take pictures of it from multiple angles. "For years, they just archived those photos and never did anything with them," Cook says. "They wanted to expand, and we were asked to come up with ideas high-lighting our capabilities for their marketing group"

One result: a 24x30-inch print of three views of a 1940s Buick station wagon. The image was provided by the auction house, archived by Artisan, and then printed on 3mm brushed silver Alcan Dibond aluminum composite. "The photos have white elements that would not work without white ink, such as the whitewall tiers and the chrome highlights," Cook says. "In addition to printing white in those areas, we put white spot channel behind the whole image to ensure it would be opaque and the colors would pop."

Our thanks to the folks at The Big Picture magazine!

Posted via email from Artisan Colour

After several months of fine tuning, we are proud to announce the launch of the newest version of the Artisan Colour website.

Artisan has gone through many changes since the last version of their website. Maybe one of the biggest is the recent addition of the Display Graphics Division with the merger with Mighty Imaging and the purchase of two new pieces of equipment; The Oce Arizona 350 GT U/V curable roll to roll and rigid hybrid printer and Zund router cutter. These machines can do amazing things! The U/V inks on the 350 GT are environmentally friendly (no VOC emissions) that can print a truly Green and sustainable product. The Zund cutter can create custom shapes and packaging to complete a corporate identity or make displays with distinction.

We're not done yet. We do have plans to further expand the site and add more features. Check back soon for the latest additions.

Our thanks to Don Giannatti of SteelID, who designed the site.

The successful promotion of a company’s product line depends on effective marketing and presentation. It is vital for a product to be advertised in such a way that grabs the audience’s attention and also creates brand recall among customers. Most companies are looking for an approach that will give them the best return on their investment.

While there are many methods of advertising, Point of Purchase (or POP) displays are an effective and low cost method that can be used as one component of an overall marketing strategy. POP displays can be found at many different retail applications. They have been in utilized in a basic way ever since man started selling their wears. Used in the simplest form, merchants would hang samples of their product in shop windows to inform potential buyers of what they sold. Nowadays, with technological advancements, samples have been replaced with picturesque depictions of the products.

Point of purchase displays come in variety of forms. They may be backlit signboards, an entire showcase, or a counter top display right at the cash register. An effective piece will have the brand name predominately mentioned. POP fixtures and displays should be colorful and attractive to consumers. The goal is to draw the customer’s attention to the display to entice them to buy your product. They need to be targeted to the demographic you are trying to reach. They should also make a statement about your company and be consistent with your brand image, as it may be the only impression the customer gets of your company.

The machine we recently purchased to create the Artisan Colour Display Graphics Division is ideal to produce this type of marketing. It was recently recognized for its superior print quality at the Euro-Reklama Outdoor Expo. The Océ Arizona® 350 GT won the 2009 Poznan International Fair (PIF) Gold Medal. The first generation of this machine (the 250 GT) was awarded the PIF Gold Medal in 2008.

Océ Wins Double Gold at Euro-Reklama Outdoor Expo 2009

The PIF Gold Medal is awarded to a product that meets a number of criteria, including quality and innovation, and that has been produced using the best technology available. A panel of specialists in each industry judges the entries. The PIF Gold Medal competition jury has a 30-year tradition of recognizing outstanding products in various fields.

The Océ Arizona 350 GT UV curable flatbed printer uses Océ VariaDot™ imaging technology to deliver near-photographic image quality for nearly any application. Designed as a true flatbed system, it can print on a wide variety of rigid substrates and features a Roll Media Option for printing onto flexible media. A White Ink Option is available to enable under-printing on colored media or objects, over-printing for backlit applications on transparent media, and printing white as a spot color. The Océ Arizona 350 GT printer is ideal for producing a wide variety of applications such as event graphics, point-of-purchase displays, limited-term signage, banners, backlit and reflective rigid displays, transit advertising, and directional signage.

We were honored and flattered when Gretchen Peck from Digital Output contacted us to give our perspective in the technological advances that have helped shape our industry and business practices for her four part exclusive online series. Gretchen contacted us as we were in the middle of our merger with Artisan Colour to become their Display Graphics Division. The equipment and technology mentioned in the article are what have become the cornerstone of our new space in the Artisan Colour complex. Here is a portion of her article.

Mighty Imaging; AZ-based Shop Makes the Move to Automation -Gretchen A. Peck for Digital Output online

Mighty Imaging invested in a blend of print technologies in order to manage an array of large format graphics.

"Right now, the equipment line-up is the Océ LightJet for fine art and photographic applications, an Epson Stylus Pro 9800 for giclée output, and a Océ Arizona 350 GT UV flatbed for direct to substrate application," explains Fradin. "While the LightJet is our workhorse, the 350 GT is going to eclipse that rather quickly."

Corporate wall art is a strong market segment for Mighty Imaging. "We produce a fair amount of wallpaper for restaurants and bars, in addition to large prints and fabric graphics for lobbies, conference rooms, board rooms, and call centers. Our attention to detail and ability to manage color allows us to fill the fine art reproduction niche as well," he explains.

With growing volumes and a demanding customer base, it wasn’t enough to simply provide exceptional print. In addition, Mighty Imaging needed to offer sophisticated and stealthy finishing services. Thus, the company recently ordered its first digital cutting solution, a Zünd G3 digital cutter.

"Prior to the G3 I lived in the last century in regards to a cutting solution—panel saw, table saw, and hand cutting. The cost savings in labor and turnaround time should be significant, and of course, having every step in the workflow process under one roof is every print service provider’s goal," admits Fradin.

Fradin expects the G3 to eliminate bottlenecks in finishing by automating cutting and trimming. "Cutting by hand, with its inherent labor costs, potential for human error, and lack of efficiency, should be reduced to nearly zero," he says. "More importantly, unique applications will allow us to set our customers’ display graphics apart from others."