New Exhibit Takes Flight with Floor-to-Ceiling Murals

When the design team at Field Museum in Chicago wanted to create an exhibit with the few James Audubon’s artifacts they had on-hand, they decided to give it a big treatment with floor-to-ceiling murals of reproductions of Audubon’s illustrations.

The exhibit idea started with an original over-sized book by Audubon, a 19th century naturalist and painter who dedicated his life to studying and documenting all the birds of North America. His bird expertise and illustrations are world-renowned. Field Museum had a few birds represented from the book as well as pages from one of Audubon’s sketch books. With only a few items on-hand, but a desire to showcase them, Nel Fetherling, supervisor of graphic production, worked with her design team to come up with a creative approach for the small exhibit.

The images in the book had been photographed years ago, and Fetherling was able to access the files. “I said: ‘Let’s do wall paper,'” she says. “We wanted to do something really, really big.”

Fetherling had used LexJet Print-N-Stick Fabric for smaller jobs and thought it could work as a wall mural, as well. “Because we use aqueous inks, I knew I couldn’t print true wallpaper, so I used this product instead,” she says. Her team printed six 14-foot x 75-inch wall murals as well as one for the entryway (pictured at top).

“The colors were so brilliant,” Fetherling says. “Our designer was skeptical, but after we printed it, she said the colors were almost better than the actual illustrations. It’s just such a nice white to print on.”

Fetherling handled the installation herself, requiring a scissor lift and a bit of trial and error. “I was thankful that it was a little bit forgiving,” she says of the ability to reposition or remove Print-N-Stick. “We have had other products that weren’t quite as successful going through the printer — and the colors were not as good. This is better than other products we’ve used with an adhesive back.”

She says Print-N-Stick’s versatility has everyone talking about what they could use it for next, since it is a viable alternative to a solvent or latex vinyl that she could not print in-house on her two Canon PRO-Series PRO-4000s.

“The Canon PRO-4000 and Lucia inks are very nice,” she says, with her team relying on the printers for everything from educational panels to artwork to event posters and much more. “Our designers were amazed at quality of prints coming out of the Canons. And we liked that we can get a two-roll thing on the Canons to switch out papers quickly.”

To learn more about the Audubon exhibit, visit Field Museum. To learn more about LexJet Print-N-Stick Fabric, call a LexJet rep at 800-453-9538 or visit LexJet.com.

Art Foundry International Renovates with Photo Canvas Inkjet Prints

Art Foundry International Sunset Photo Canvas Paper

As noted in an earlier post here at the LexJet Blog, there’s a new photo paper in town, and its name is Sunset Photo Canvas Paper 230g.

Since its introduction a couple of weeks ago a lot of different types of print shops, designers, décor specialists, artists and photographers have made it a go-to photo paper for framed and mounted art and photo applications.

Take Art Foundry International, based in Lawrenceville, Ga., which recently completed a décor renovation for a hotel that featured around 300 framed abstract photo art pieces. The texture of Sunset Photo Canvas Paper was ideal for the project at hand.

“The designer requested artwork that would stay true to their color scheme. They didn’t want the usual floral or nearby landmark prints, but more of an abstract take on the nature which surrounds the location of their hotel. The warm colors of the wood bark really popped out on the paper, and complemented the room design very well,” explains Saloni Desai, President of Art Foundry International. “The images, such as the wood bark and moss-covered tree trunk, have a natural, textured feel, so they were looking for the right paper to highlight that.”

Art Foundry International produced about 300 framed prints on Sunset Photo Canvas Paper with the company’s inkjet printer at sizes such as 20″ x 34″, 34″ x 22″, 22″ x 35″, and 11″ x 11″.

“LexJet’s new canvas paper allows me to enhance the vision even further by really bringing my photography and artwork to life and giving it a lot of depth. It mimics a real canvas painting, which really helps hit a home run with the customization aspect. I am very pleased with the innovative quality of this paper and look forward to marketing the exclusivity I can offer my clients for their projects. The feedback we’ve heard from this project is that the pictures look so real they make you want to walk up to the frame and actually touch it, expecting to feel the tree bark’s texture,” says Desai.

Art Foundry International designs, interprets, creates, develops and distributes a diverse portfolio of artistically inspired products as a result of relationships with artists and designers globally.

The company markets these creations to its customers and clients, presenting value and beauty in the form of unique commercial, hospitality, and residential designer products.

A major part of Art Foundry’s decor furnishings business revolves around its custom framed artwork and mirrors that complements the design in each unique space.

New Sunset Canvas from LexJet Designed for Production

Production inkjet printable canvasPrint shops and art reproduction companies looking for an economical inkjet-printable canvas alternative for longer production runs that provides consistent quality can now add LexJet Sunset Production Matte Canvas to their arsenal.

“Of course I really like the price of this new canvas from LexJet, but it still provides good color reproduction. It has a little more tooth to show the canvas texture for mass production projects that require that look,” says Richard Herschberger, owner of Herschberger Galerie in Arthur, Ill. “I also like the fact that I can get it in 60-foot rolls so I’m not changing it out as often; you get more bang for the buck that way.”

LexJet Sunset Production Matte Canvas has been engineered for the latest aqueous printer and ink set technologies from Canon, Epson and HP. It is a bright-white, water-resistant 100% polyester matte canvas with the look and feel of a traditional 2-over-1 weave for all types of art and décor applications. It’s designed to work flawlessly with Sunset Gloss Coating and Sunset Satin Coating, either sprayed or rolled on.

“The new canvas effectively rounds out our award-winning Sunset Canvas line because it gives companies with high-production environments the perfect balance between price and quality in a highly repeatable, consistent large format inkjet print solution,” says Alex Ried, LexJet product manager. “That’s what we were aiming for when we developed it, and our feedback so far indicates that we hit the target.”

LexJet Sunset Production Matte Canvas is now available and shipping from LexJet’s Nationwide Delivery Network, which provides the vast majority of the United States with one-day ground shipping on all LexJet products. It is available in 60′ roll lengths and 24″, 36″, 44″ and 60″ widths.

For more information about LexJet Sunset Production Matte Canvas and the Sunset Canvas line, contact a LexJet customer specialist at 800-453-9538.

A Decorative Art Original: Soicher Marin

Soicher Marin, based in Sarasota, Fla., is the classic American success story. Ed Marin, who is the second-generation owner of Soicher Marin, has maintained the original vision, aesthetic and point of view of the company when it was conceived in the Los Angeles area in 1959 by Harry Soicher.

Inkjet printing decorative artworkEd’s father joined Soicher in 1960, coming to America from Argentina with $125 in his pocket he had borrowed to make his way in the land of opportunity.

Marin was a framer by trade, and the pair took their individual talents into the decorative art market, serving the interior design, home furnishings and home fashion trades. By 1972 Soicher Marin was national with showrooms in every major market. Harry Soicher passed away in 1974 and Ed Marin eventually took over operations in the early ‘90s.

“At that time a lot of us were showing up at trade shows with the same types of products, because the universe of printed art was supplied by a handful of people out of New York and London,” says Ed Marin. “My dad was buying antiques and other artwork that was in the public domain, or he would find an artist he wanted to publish, and we would go to offset printing and do limited runs. It was great because it gave us our own identity and point of view, and we were able to do things exclusive to us. The problem was that you had to be right all the time; if you made a mistake you were sitting on a lot of wasted paper, so we were very cautious about the images we put out and how we put them out.”

Art reproductions for home furnishing and decorWhen inkjet printing became a viable method of art reproduction, Soicher Marin outsourced it at first, but when it became more affordable to purchase the equipment it was brought in-house with an Epson printer and an Onyx RIP.

“We were 100 percent exclusive with our art within a year; we didn’t have anything we were buying from anyone else. We were and are very much a content-driven company and it’s been allowed to happen because of this breakthrough in technology,” says Marin.

All of Soicher Marin’s artwork is produced in-house. Marin acts as the “chief art director,” as he puts it, to ensure that a consistent look is achieved. The Soicher Marin “look” is drawn from both natural history and contemporary art. Either way, it has what Marin calls “a historical perspective” unique to Soicher Marin, which you can see in the accompanying photos.

“If we have a point of view in the industry it’s driven by the aesthetic I want to put out in the market. I have catalogs from our company that date back to the mid-‘60s and ‘70s. Obviously, the artwork and colors are different, but the aesthetic and point of view is not. There’s a common thread that runs through the product line. It’s not a conscious effort; it’s just how we think and the people who come to work here and have become involved in our design process come to see it that way as well.”

The Soicher Marin aesthetic is not forced; rather, it’s a natural extension of a corporate culture that encourages creativity, independence, leadership and customer service. Moreover, the emphasis is on the art, not the technology used to create or reproduce it.

Producing decorative artwork in-house“We don’t over-embellish, over-layer or over-digitize the artwork. We let great art speak for itself. Our biggest responsibility is to reproduce it with the highest fidelity. And the same goes for our framing; we’re very careful about the materials we pick and how we treat the art. We have a less-is-more approach to our design,” says Marin. “Although we have densitometers and other devices that help us reach the optimal, our employees have it down to an art – it’s less science and more art.”

The young artists who work at Soicher Marin are intimately involved in the design process. Marin says they’re given a lot of leeway to “go off the reservation,” and it’s encouraged. By immersing them both in the Soicher Marin aesthetic and independent creativity, the Soicher Marin brand is enhanced.

“There’s another component that’s less obvious and it’s that there’s a certain rightness to our design and point of view. In the biography of Steve Jobs I found that there was a lot of discussion about his obsession with design. There’s a design thread that runs through Apple’s products, and you can see that someone put a lot of thought into each product. There’s a certain organic nature to it,” explains Marin. “We can’t say why it is exactly that the iPhone and all the other products are so pleasing to the eye, but they just are. We look at it the same way. We obsess over small details that change something very slightly, then people stand back and say it looks right, whether it’s scale or color, and that’s the part of organic design that people have a hard time describing, but they know it when they see it. It’s something I think we accomplish here as a team.”

Designing decorative artwork for residential and commercial applications
Soicher Marin designer Thom Filicia (left) and Ed Marin.

This is an integral part of the culture, but most important are the elements of customer service and leadership. For Soicher Marin, customer service begins within the company itself. If that element is lacking, serving the end-use customer will surely lag.

Therefore, great emphasis is placed on interpersonal and interdepartmental customer service. The art department is the digital department’s customer, for instance, so the digital department must please its internal customer first. “That’s the service culture we want,” says Marin.

To foster leadership, Marin explains, “Everyone is a leader and has a responsibility to someone else. My responsibility is to mentor them, teach them, give them my time, listen to their concerns, bring them into the general conversation of the company and work on their leadership skills. Then, their job is to do the same thing with everyone under them. Even if they leave our company, we may hate to lose them, but if they lead somewhere else because of something we taught them, we look at it as a service to the community.”

Like Soicher Marin’s design aesthetic, it’s the little things that make the difference in customer service. In other words, it goes far beyond providing a great product on time. It means answering the phone, showing courtesy and giving customers all the time they need.

Framing decorative art
Ed Marin, second-generation owner of Soicher Marin, Sarasota, Fla.

“Our customer service people have the best job because they get to talk to the customer, even when that means fielding a complaint, since a complaint is often an opportunity to not only make it right, but to solidify that relationship. My dad used to say that it costs so little to keep a customer; it’s much more costly to find them than it is to keep them,” says Marin.

Marin adds that the recession has made things difficult for the entire decorative art market. Soicher Marin made because of a brand that’s more than 50 years old. “The power of the brand is almost infinite when times are tough,” says Marin.

The Soicher Marin brand is strong because the company takes a collaborative approach to branding. Soicher Marin chooses partners wisely; partners that have the same dedication to quality and detail. For instance, Soicher Marin designs artwork for Lillian August’s furniture collection for furniture maker Hickory White.

“Lillian August has a beautiful furniture collection with Hickory White and she will collaborate with us on the design of all the pictures that are supposed to go with her furniture, so it’s a de facto collaboration with an important brand like Hickory White. Our customers know that the licensing relationships we have are really strong and collaborative, which makes our company still relevant after all these years.”

For its art reproduction, Soicher Marin’s choice of giclee materials is purely subjective and vary from LexJet Sunset Photo eSatin Paper to LexJet Sunset Fibre Matte and Sunset Hot Press Rag, as well as canvas reproductions with LexJet Sunset Select Gloss Canvas and Sunset Select Matte Canvas.

Soicher Marin releases four sets of collections per year. Its two “major” seasons are spring and fall, and its two “minor” seasons are summer and winter.

“The type of art we bring to the table will determine the medium we put it on. If it’s photography, for instance, it could end up on an eSatin, a fibre-based or rag paper, based on what the image is,” says Marin.

Again, it’s the seemingly minor and subtle choices that make Soicher Marin so unique and successful in its offering. As Marin puts it, “We don’t just sell prints.”

For more information about Soicher Marin and its collections, go to www.soicher-marin.com. 

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…

Try LexJet’s Next-Generation Sunset Select Gloss Canvas for Inkjet Printing

When Personal-Prints.com accepts an order for a reproduction of this painting, Island Getaway by Scott Kennedy, they will customize the tree-carving with whatever names the customer requests. Personal-Prints.com, a division of Solstice Arts, is using LexJet’s new Sunset Select Gloss Canvas for all of their hand-painted images. For more information about Personal Prints, visit Personal-Prints.com, or call Tyler Kennedy at 970-686-8787 x307.

The next-generation of Sunset Select Gloss Canvas from LexJet is now available. Sunset Select Gloss Canvas produces vibrant, richly detailed color photographs and art reproductions with the newest generation of wide-gamut, wide-format aqueous-ink inkjet printers.

LexJet Sunset Select Gloss Canvas is a heavyweight (430g), bright white, poly/cotton blend canvas with a relatively smooth Oxford 2-over 1 weave that is ideal for reproducing detail in printed photos and art. Combined with the high-gloss, ink-receptive surface coating, Sunset Select Gloss Canvas produces the wide color gamut and exceptional Dmax needed to reveal many of the subtle details in shadows and highlights in photographs.

“We have used LexJet products for many years and were thrilled to receive the new Sunset Select Gloss Canvas,” explains Tyler Kennedy, marketing director for art-publishing company Solstice Arts in Berthoud, Colo. “Personal-Prints.com is a company owned and operated by a family of artists, and we are very particular about what papers and canvases we use for printing our hand-painted images. It didn’t take any convincing for us to unanimously decide that this canvas is the perfect backdrop for all of our canvas printing. The intensity of the white point makes our images practically pop off the canvas, as the colors show up in their true vivid and intense hue.”

Because the canvas is water resistant and easy to stretch, it is perfect for use in photo labs and printmaking service bureaus that produce high volumes of photo canvases or giclée prints. The acid-free, pH-neutral coating on Sunset Select Gloss coating helps ensure images printed with today’s pigment inks will continue looking good for decades. For additional protection against humidity, abrasion, and UV light the prints can be varnished with either LexJet Sunset Gloss or Sunset Satin Coatings.