Best of 2017: 10 Awesome Customer Print Projects

From school pride and works of art to corporate design and thesis exhibits, 2017 was an inspiring year of print output by LexJet customers around the country. Take a look at 10 of the top applications we discovered from our amazingly creative, inventive and sometimes super feisty customers:

Illinois Company Revs Up Custom Car Show Signs Sometimes a passion can turn into an excellent business opportunity, which is exactly what happened to Gary Hedlin, who owns Show Car Signs, a business that specializes in designing, printing and mounting customized signs for car shows. The signs are displayed on the ground, on easels or mounted onto a 4-foot brushed-aluminum stand, and the verbiage on the sign describes details like the car’s make, model and year, horsepower, wheel types, suspension, vehicle upgrades and other tidbits to help the car stand out in the competition. READ MORE

How Bumblejax Gives Mounted Photos Some Real Pop When Seattle, Wash.-based Bumblejax wanted to create an ecommerce site that allowed anyone to have access to high-end, modern face-mounted photo displays, they tested out several different photo papers before settling on the winning product. About five years ago, they came across the award-winning LexJet Sunset Photo Metallic Paper, and they were sold. READ MORE

Layers of Imaging Opportunities at Image-Tec

Fine Art Canvas
Image-Tec has full canvas production capabilities in-house. This canvas fine art reproduction printed on Sunset by Fredrix Matte Canvas is in process.

Tom Grassi likens his business – Image-Tec, based in Methuen, Mass. – to Photoshop. It’s an apt analogy: Photoshop is arguably the iconic representative of the digital age of photography and imaging, and Photoshop is almost infinitely organic in the various ways you can get from point A to point B through its tools, filters and layers.

Commercial photography at Image-Tec
Commercial photography continues to be an important part of Image-Tec’s business.

“This business has layers and layers to it, and you can keep digging and keying off those layers, and marketing off those layers to build a huge customer base,” says Grassi. “It’s like Photoshop… How far do you want to dig and how many layers do you want to build?”

Though the majority – a thin majority – of Image-Tec’s work is fine art reproduction, the business is diverse and nimble enough to find those proverbial layers, bringing clients along to take advantage of the opportunities presented when you dig a little deeper.

“I tell artists during demos we put on here at the studio that the possibilities of taking your art and doing something with it are endless, and go far beyond the typical reproduction on canvas or fine art paper. Once the digital age came in, you could do just about anything with the digital file,” says Grassi. “But to find out what the client really needs you have to stop selling people and listen to them. From that, you can find other products that might do well in the market with their work.”

Artist Note Cards
Artists love the note cards Image-Tec prints for them on LexJet Premium Archival Matte Paper.

It may be that Grassi sees more of those layers of opportunity since the advent of digital imaging and reproduction, and the liberation it brought.

Image-Tec was founded in 1982 as a commercial photo studio with an in-house lab and Grassi recalls: “We were limited in what we could do for artists. We were shooting film and making some color prints; basically, we were producing transparencies to go to offset, which was extremely expensive versus now where you can print on demand.”

Grassi says that on-demand is a point of emphasis at Image-Tec where the main goal is to get the artwork scanned and recorded and then work with the artist to market the images.

Image Tec's drive in photography studio.
Image Tec’s drive in photography studio.

“There’s no need for us to sell them inventory in a print-on-demand environment. They can spend a couple of hundred bucks, get a bunch of paintings scanned, print some note cards, see what images sell and email us the order,” explains Grassi. “If customers are going to spend money with you, why not make the process as easy as possible? You don’t have to commit to a thousand dollars worth of prints; just bring the scans in, we’ll get them scanned – that’s the first step – and then from there you call us and we print them on-demand. People appreciate that because we tell them to do baby steps, especially in marketing their artwork because you don’t know what will sell.”

The original impetus for the founding of Image-Tec was control. Grassi went to the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, Calif., to study photography, then returned to the Boston area to ply his trade as a photographer where the processing side was a thorn in his side.

Product photography for Pet Edge at Image-Tec.
Product photography for Pet Edge at Image-Tec.

“I was going down to Boston to process film and thought it was nuts because I was losing all this time and paying all this money to get it done. I knew how to print color so I got a loan, put a lab in and ended up generating a ton of money and saving a ton of time,” says Grassi.

That philosophy has stuck over the years. As Grassi puts it: “If we don’t do it here, we don’t do it. For me to send something out, have it come back wrong, and then go back and forth, I’ve lost money trying to make 20 percent on something I don’t handle. I much prefer to give the client the name and number of someone who can do something we don’t do here.”

There’s very little, however, that Image-Tec can’t do when it comes to photographic and fine art reproduction, including artwork capture with the BetterLight system. Capture, in fact, is an important part of the business, since about half of what Grassi does is commercial photography.

Fine Art Reproduction by Image-TecThe two sides of the business – capture and output – balance each other and reveal more layers of opportunity. Plus, the combination helped ease the transition from chemical to digital in the late ’90s as both sides of the business made the transition together and shined the light on new niche markets, like fine art reproduction.

“Back in 1999 we moved to a new facility and went digital with a BetterLight scan back to shoot catalog photography. By going digital we could save a lot of money in film, Polaroids and processing and be able to hand designers digital files, which sped everything up. However, everyone was reluctant to do that because digital photography wasn’t that great in the late ’90s, but the BetterLight was a very high-res scan back,” says Grassi. “We offered both chemical and inkjet during the transition and as inkjet took over we found we were using less of the chemical process. Plus, buying a high-end Epson scanner allowed us to pull from the thousands and thousands of 4×5 and 8×10 negatives so we can just scan one and make an inkjet print.”

Grassi estimates that the split between print production and capture now is about 60/40 in favor of printing. For commercial photography there’s a drive-in studio for photographing cars and other large pieces, and the subject matter runs the gamut from food to manufacturing.

Stretching canvas at Image-Tec.
Stretching canvas at Image-Tec.

“It’s a whole workflow. Over the past three weeks, for example, we’ve been taking in over 100 paintings per week for digital capture. Along with that are all the print orders. Some weeks we’re producing a ton of prints while other weeks we’re bringing in a lot of work to capture,” says Grassi. “All we use the BetterLight for is capturing art. The DSLRs are so great now that I use them for commercial photography. We bought a Horseman, a view camera you can mount your DSLR on, so you can correct perspectives, swings, and tilts and do selective focus a lot easier without buying a bunch of different lenses. It’s kind of a throwback to the old-school 4×5 process.”

For output, Image-Tec runs a Canon iPF8300 and an Epson Stylus Pro 9900 and has a full frame and finishing shop, including a Tensador canvas stretching machine. One of the keys to the output, says Grassi, is in the BetterLight scan back’s ability to create a file size that’s the same size as the artwork.

“File size is what drives this whole process, so we can tell a customer they’ll end up with a 40×60 canvas that will look just as nice as the original because it’s the same file size,” says Grassi. “We’ve perfected some specialized lighting techniques for different paintings that get us closer to the original. You still run into colors that tend to want to give you a hard time, but you just stick with it and run proofs. We’ll run strips in selected areas, match them up and get them as close as possible. We also spray the proofs because you might see some color shift when you spray something.”

Product Photography at Image-Tec
One of the many layers in the Image-Tec business mix is product photography of all kinds at the company’s studio.

Grassi’s favorite inkjet print materials for reproduction include the new Sunset by Fredrix Matte Canvas, LexJet Premium Archival Matte Paper, Sunset Textured Fine Art and Sunset Hot Press Rag. Grassi says Sunset by Fredrix Matte Canvas helped solve issues in finishing since the ink stays on consistently when it’s stretched.

Grassi describes LexJet Premium Archival Matte Paper as a workhorse for about 60 percent of what clients want to do with their artwork, including note card and bookmark prints that are popular with artists as alternative products.

The choice between reproductions on Sunset Textured Fine Art and Sunset Hot Press Rag will depend on the type of medium on which the original was created. “When we scan a watercolor on a watercolor paper we pick up the texture as well, so we print it on the smooth Hot Press Rag paper because you don’t want to add more texture to what has already been picked up by the scan,” explains Grassi.

It’s great to have every step in the process nailed down to ensure a quality capture or print every time, but Grassi says it’s all for naught if the customer isn’t comfortable or feels like the process itself is a black box they’re not privy to understanding.

“When we do a demo or have an artist come in as a new customer we spend 45 minutes with them. We show them the process, show our personality and have fun with what we’re doing. There’s a lot of technical stuff that goes on and if you can shed some light on it, they appreciate it,” says Grassi. “They go through the process, and then after they leave with their work we follow up to find if they loved it or if there are any problems we can correct. We make sure they’re 100 percent happy with a follow-up. How we can judge if we were successful is through consistent re-orders.”

This approach builds invaluable word of mouth, but Grassi is also active through the use of Google ad words and social media marketing. The most effective marketing piece so far in the social media/Google age, says Grassi, is a video he posted on the Image-Tec website that gives an overview of the print process.

The Next Dimension of Fine Art Reproduction at Bellevue Fine Art

Bellevue Fine Art Reproduction got its start as a way to solve a problem. For the company’s owner, Scott Moore, the problem was finding a way to reproduce his watercolor and pen-and-ink fine art. The solution was to do it himself, perfect the process and provide the service to artists and photographers in the Seattle/Bellevue area of Washington.

Spraying and coating canvas“At the time I was traveling a lot internationally and I tried places that did giclee printing in Japan, China, Canada and Paris. I wasn’t getting the color I wanted, and with the pen-and-ink I wasn’t getting the extreme detail I needed. Using my own artwork as a beta test I ended up making my own reproductions, and the more I looked around the more I saw that the Seattle area needed a business like this. There was a need for it, and there still is,” says Moore.

Moore opened the doors of Bellevue Fine Art Reproduction in April 2007, starting with a BetterLight scan-back system to scan and capture artwork, two Epson Stylus Pro 9800s and a software RIP for processing the files for print.

Fine art and photography reproductionSince that time, Moore has updated his BetterLight System, upgraded to two Epson Stylus Pro 9900s, moved his RIP workflow to ImagePrint and most recently added a 24″ x 36″ laser engraver table. Moore says that about 90 percent of his business is fine-art reproduction; the other 10 percent is photo reproduction.

Moore serves a narrow niche, but is expanding the options and opportunities of his client base. Moore sees himself as far more than simply an art reproduction company; his job is to help his clients find a wider market for their work.

Laser etching fine art“We look at each artist’s artwork as intellectual property that can be productized in different ways, from limited edition prints to cutting vector designs of their work into various materials,” explains Moore. “We want to take people’s existing assets and help them do interesting things with them.”

What that has translated to with the addition of the laser engraver is products like etching artwork into leather for purses, cutting patterns into Masonite that the artist then paints and has Bellevue Fine Art reproduce, die-cutting Photo Tex Repositionable Fabric for walls and other surfaces, and even etching urns for a local funeral home.

Reproducing fine art on canvasThe addition of the laser engraver is a perfect fit for Moore’s customer service philosophy. As he puts it: “Providing good service is more than calling back and being on the ball. We’re very well connected with the art community so we provide a lot of services to people you wouldn’t normally think of, like gallery introductions, suggestions on where to show their work, and advice on ways to display and sell their work. Service is a lot more than giving someone a cup of coffee while they wait for their print. We try to be connected and active in the art world so we can complement our services in other ways, such as introductions and industry knowledge. It’s symbiotic; the more we do for them to help them be successful the more they come back to us because they are successful. Service is all about that ecosystem around the artist; anything I can do to help them be successful makes me more successful.”

Of course it’s all for naught if Moore isn’t producing the output to the exacting needs of his client base, which is why he keeps up with the latest workflow and printing technology and spends additional time educating his clients and setting expectations.

Scanning artwork with the BetterLight system“When we evolved to the Epson 9900s we also went with the ImagePrint RIP. If you’re in the business of printing art all day long, you don’t want to think about how to get it out the other end. When you drag and drop those images into the interface and select the correct profile, that’s all you have to think about. It makes our workflow that much faster; anyone who values their time should be willing to spend their money on that,” explains Moore. “Printing is just like painting. One of the successful traits of painter is knowing when you’re done. You could re-do it forever, but you’ll probably be the only one to notice. When you’re trying to reproduce a masterpiece for sale you have to strike a balance. We’re working with aqueous inks, where the originals are sometimes made with ground gems or minerals, creating iridescents, fluorescents and metallics. The challenge is helping them understand the limitations of the technology and how to best utilize it. Some people don’t want the reproduction unless it’s perfect. The prints are as close as we can get them, but if it’s that important, buy the original, which is why an original costs so much more. There’s only one perfect copy of an original, and that’s the original. We spend a lot of time setting expectations, and we won’t just write an order and take their money unless we think they will be happy with it.”

Toward that end, Moore employs a variety of inkjet materials from LexJet, including Sunset and Hahnemuhle brand fine art and photo papers. Moore says the material choice is usually based on what comes closest to replicating the original. For instance, he’ll typically use Sunset Textured Fine Art Paper for watercolor art, Hahnemuhle Bamboo for “warmer” originals, and FineArt Baryta for acrylic originals.

“My personal favorites are Sunset Fibre Elite, Sunset Photo eSatin Paper, LexJet Premium Archival Matte and Hahnemuhle FineArt papers. Sunset Fibre Elite for black-and-white printing is stellar; it looks and feels a lot like the old metal halide papers. It’s a special, unique paper that, when placed next to other photo papers, really stands out; the color jumps out at you,” says Moore. “Our staple papers are Sunset Photo eSatin and Premium Archival Matte, which we use for proofing as well.”

Producing fine art in multiple=Though Bellevue Fine Art Reproduction has only been in business for about five years, the company is attracting and retaining business beyond its borders, especially from those looking for high-quality scanning services.

“We’ve invested heavily in making sure our image scanning and output is the best it can be. We pick quality materials and equipment, and we don’t worry about cost that much. How we do that and compete in today’s world is that we’ve captured a niche that is high margin and low volume. We’ll take the jobs other printers don’t want; we’ll do 10 watercolors, for instance, that a commercial print company would prefer not to bother with,” says Moore. “So rather than compete with larger print shops, we actually complement them. There are a number of print shops in the area that come to us for scanning, and they do things we don’t do, so we have a good complementary business with our would-be competition in the area.”

Maxwell Dickson’s Nontraditional Approach to Art and Art Reproduction

Gallery exhibition of urban, modern art

Only little more than a year old, Los Angeles-based Maxwell Dickson is making quite the name for itself. The brainchild of entrepreneurs James Freeman and Bart Cooper, Maxwell Dickson is much more than an art reproduction studio.

Owners and founders of Maxwell Dickson, James Freeman and Bart Cooper
Maxwell Dickson founders James Freeman (left) and Bart Cooper at the Art, Libations & Sound Los Angeles exhibition of their work on Feb. 9.

The fledgling company has effectively blurred the lines of how art reaches the public, from creation to exhibition and print sales. Cooper provides the genius behind the Maxwell Dickson art brand, creating modern, urban artwork that is the mainstay of Maxwell Dickson’s line. Freeman is the brains behind the business, with a natural flair for marketing and finding the right avenues for Maxwell Dickson’s distinct style.

Freeman also prints Cooper’s paintings, which are actually “painted” on a Wacom digital tablet. Though Cooper can paint a physical canvas, his creations emerge instead on a computer screen. Freeman explains, “Digital creation allows us to work a lot faster than the traditional process of painting, scanning and printing. Plus, digital painting allows more color control and yields a piece of art that can be much more colorful. This method has also allowed us to quickly build up a large base of artwork to sell.”

Nicole Murphy hosts gallery exhibition of Maxwell Dickson art
Bart Cooper and Nicole Murphy, who hosted the Art, Libations and Sound exhibition.

The end result is a collection that is both accessible and unique. For instance, Maxwell Dickson art is sold at Overstock.com and is quite popular with a younger demographic. Overstock was not having a lot of success with in its art line with this younger demographic before the addition of Maxwell Dickson to the fold.

Freeman prints all the reproductions with a Canon iPF8300, which he bought from LexJet when he and Cooper first started the company. The primary print medium is Sunset Select Matte Canvas coated with Sunset Satin Coating, which Freeman has also been using since Maxwell Dickson opened for business.

“We install the profiles from LexJet, and that’s all we really have to do. I was amazed that it was so simple because I was under the impression that you would have to do all this color correction and buy all this software to get what you wanted out of the print,” says Freeman.

Maxwell Dickson does a smattering of inkjet reproduction work for photographers and digital artists on canvas, Sunset Photo eSatin Paper, Sunset Velvet Rag and Sunset Textured Fine Art Paper. However, the mainstay is the Maxwell Dickson art collection. Freeman likens the concept to Hallmark: “Someone designed the card, not under their name, but under Hallmark. This is not for traditional galleries, and they’re right because people going to art galleries are looking for originals. The market for art reproductions is massive. If you like the art, you can get the size you want in your room and it’s very affordable.”

Maxwell Dickson exhibition at Art, Libations & SoundThe Maxwell Dickson line was recently represented at a gala exhibition in Los Angeles on Feb. 9 hosted by Nicole Murphy – model, mother, designer and soon-to-be reality star who’s also Eddie Murphy’s ex-wife. Called Art, Libations & Sound, the exhibition drew throngs of people to the doors. “Supporting Los Angeles’ young art community is a must,” said Murphy. “I’m excited to be hosting this exhibition with such an eclectic body of work.”

Maxwell Dickson and its creative entrepreneurial pair of Freeman and Cooper are certainly going places and bringing their art to both the celebrity set and the public at large, so keep an eye on them for years to come. To get a better sense of the exhibition, beyond the photos published here, check out the video below…

Talk of the Town: Printing for the Traverse City Film Festival and Much More

Graphics for the Traverse City Film FestivalGlobetrotting photographer and Renaissance man John Williams claims that Traverse City, Mich., is the “center of the known universe.” Be that as it may, Williams may very well have a point… to a point. Traverse City is one of the few bright spots of growth in Michigan, and the State Theatre that Williams bought and remodeled as a community-based, not-for-profit, volunteer-run movie theater is consistently among the top grossing theaters in North America.

“We’ve already had over 500,000 patrons come through the doors since we opened in November 2007. The movie studios have taken notice, but they just can’t figure out how Traverse City on the back side of nowhere has this unbelievable theater doing unbelievable ticket business,” says Williams.

Perhaps it’s related to the incredibly successful Traverse City Film Festival that Williams helped launch in July of 2005. It also helps to have connections, like Williams’ long-time friend, film maker Michael Moore.

“For about a decade previous to starting the film festival, I had wanted to get one together and Michael is an obvious connection. He said, ‘Let’s do it in July,’ which was only eight weeks away, and we put it together. With his connections in Hollywood and my connections in town, we got it going and hung our hat on the motto, Just Great Movies. Now we’re one of the largest festivals in the U.S. in terms of paid attendance; we had over 110,000 people attend last year,” explains Williams.

Now the film festival board is filled with Hollywood luminaries and the film festival draws some of the brightest talent to showcase their work on what is at one time “the backside of nowhere” and the “center of the known universe.” This year, the film festival will be held July 26-31.

Williams also prints all the posters and signage for the event on his ancient Epson 10000. He’s had the printer since he first delved into inkjet and ditched the chemical process eight years or so ago. He has since added a Canon iPF8300 to the mix, but uses that for the bulk of his fine art and photography printing.

Producing inkjet prints for a film festival
John Williams, with the help of college volunteers lining up to help with the Traverse City Film Festival, prints all the calendars, posters, signs and playbills on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Polypropylene.

“I print a lot of the LexJet Sunset Photo Gloss Paper on the new Canon printer, and that stuff is magic on the printer. The gamut, range, saturation and sharpness on that paper are amazing. I also do a lot of fine art reproduction here and use the Sunset Textured Fine Art Paper or LexJet Premium Archival Matte Paper for most of those prints,” says Williams.

Though the Epson 10000 has plowed through more than 8 kilometers of paper over the years, and Williams has to plug it into an older Windows system since there are no compatible drivers for his latest operating system, it fits the bill for the rolls and rolls of LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Polypropylene he prints for the event.

“It’s pretty simple; I just take care of my stuff,” says Williams about the printer’s longevity. “It’s been a real workhorse and shows no sign of quitting. For the film festival, we go through about 1,100 feet of the Water-Resistant Polypropylene just making the posters.”

To help with the artwork and workflow, Williams employs a bevy of college interns who vie for the opportunity to work on the film festival. “Some of them are graphic artists who funnel the art to me that gets printed here at the studio. They do all the trimming and mounting on foam board for the signs that aren’t going into windows,” adds Williams. “We buy cases of 40×60 foam board and keep laying them out on the board using spray mount, trim and apply them. We have a good system where you start at one end of the board, hold the material up high, and slowly put it down like a bed sheet. Doing it this way we never get bubbles in the material.”