This Seattle Framing Company Is Going Big with the Epson P20000

Mary Song of the Seattle-based NW Art + Framing knows a thing or two about printing. A photographer and print coordinator, she oversees the fulfillment of custom and commercial orders for a variety of clients throughout the Northwest. In fact, the company handles printing for three sets of stores, which include the flagship NW Art + Framing, Frame Central, Museum Quality Framing and Beard’s Framing.

“Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we’ll fulfill 10,000 orders,” Song says. “We get 150-foot custom rolls, and we’ll go through four of them a day.”

NW Art + Framing prints for hospitality, healthcare and commercial clients.
NW Art + Framing prints for hospitality, healthcare and commercial clients.

That’s a lot of media for fine and framed art, metal prints, canvas and much more. To handle the workload, the facility houses nine printers, mostly Epson, including the recent purchase of the Epson SureColor P20000 64-inch printer, pictured above in action.

“The P20000 is helpful for large canvas and art prints,” Song says. “We have a demand for it, and everyone is going larger.”

The demand, she says, was specifically for large fine art, coated prints that weren’t latex-specific. The P20000 was specifically designed for high-production photographic and fine art printing with all new UltraChrome PRO inks, including four levels of grays. To ensure the color reproduction was up to par, Song but it through a rigorous test: her own work.

“As a photographer, I didn’t trust people to print for me,” Song says. “When we got the P20000 in, the first image I printed was one of mine, so I could see how good it was. The definition in the images was fantastic. The image has sepia tones, which is difficult to print, but right out of the box without profiles, it was spot-on. I couldn’t be happier.”

Since Song started with NW a year and a half ago, the company has doubled the number of its printers in effort to bring all print jobs in-house. “We really wanted to get the profit inside our building,” she says. That also meant that she and her team had to work faster, which was another selling point for the P20000.

“We needed a faster turn-around time, and this machine is faster,” she says. After considering some other less-expensive, older-model printers on the market, she chose to go with the P20000. “I said: If we’re going to invest in new technology, let’s invest in what’s the newest, not something that would be outdated within a few years.”

The company is also considering purchasing a SureColor P10000 44-inch printer, which uses the same ink set as the P20000, which will save on storage space and maintenance, she says, as well as delivering the consistency she expects. “Nothing beats Epson’s color or quality,” Song says. “Epson is by far one of the best printer companies out there.”

LexJet Introduces New Invoice & Order Fulfillment System

In an effort to improve your experience with LexJet, we are transitioning to a new ordering and fulfillment system that will provide better visibility into ordering and shipping details as your order progresses from a sales order to a fulfilled order to an invoiced order.

On Dec. 1, 2016, the order process will flow like this:

  1. You will receive a sales order summary and confirmation as soon as you place your order.
  2. You will receive additional notifications throughout the ordering, fulfillment and invoicing process.
  3. You will receive tracking information for UPS ground and air shipments via email and invoice(s) as each item on the order is fulfilled from the shipping location.
  4. If items ship on different days or from certain designated fulfillment centers, you will receive additional invoice(s) for those items as they are fulfilled against the original sales order that you placed with us.
  5. Items 3 and 4 are being implemented to ensure that you are only billed for items when they have been shipped.
  6. As a convenience to you, the total shipping charges incurred for the entire sales order will be billed on the first invoice for that sales order. Subsequent invoices for the sales order will contain no shipping charges.

If you have any questions or concerns about the process, please contact us at 800-453-9538.