Printing Historic Art for the Historic Otesaga Resort Hotel in Cooperstown

Otesaga Resort Hotel Decor by Creative Interior Imagery

When you hear (or read) “Cooperstown,” the first thing that comes to mind is the National Baseball Hall of Fame located in this historic New York village.

Printed Decor by Creative Interior ImageryHowever, Cooperstown is steeped in American history far beyond baseball, not the least of which is its most famous son, James Fenimore Cooper, who penned the classic America novel The Last of the Mohicans (the town is actually named after his father).

Given the rich history of the area it was entirely appropriate for the historic Otesaga Resort Hotel in Cooperstown to enrich its interior décor with reproductions of fine art housed at the Fenimore Art Museum.

The hotel, which was established in 1909, turned to Creative Interior Imagery to faithfully reproduce the fine art pieces in the guest rooms and bathrooms. Creative Interior Imagery produced a total of more than 800 framed prints ranging from 13″ x 22″ to 20″ x 32″ for the Otesaga Resort Hotel.

Creative Interior Imagery Fine Art ReproductionCreative Interior Imagery is known for its ability to take a project from conception to completion, providing end-to-end capabilities from high-end photography and scanning to printing, finishing and installation, all in a tightly-controlled, color-calibrated system.

In this case, the Fenimore Art Museum scanned the original artwork and provided Creative Interior Imagery with the files, which were printed on Sunset Velvet Rag 315g on the company’s Epson Stylus Pro 11880 and Epson Stylus Pro 9900 wide format inkjet printers.

“They wanted a premium-quality archival paper for the high-end artwork. Based on that, we used the Sunset Velvet Rag: it’s been much more consistent for us than other similar fine-art papers,” says Keith Tomkins of Creative Interior Imagery. “We use it quite a bit for high-end artwork, and we’ve been getting very consistent results with it. People like the look, texture and feel so it’s been a very good product for us.”

Walls to Windows: Creative Interior Imagery Makes a Perfect Match

 

Creative Interior Imagery
Creative Interior Imagery not only seamlessly carried the “tree” theme from walls to windows (from left to right), but perfectly matched the interior paint.

Creative Interior Imagery, based in West Pittson, Pa., merged interior décor and design with digital printing for a medical center that wanted something less conventional and more inviting for its patients.

Eric Marsico, a partner at Creative Interior Imagery with Keith Tomkins, recommended hundreds of feet of wall and window murals to carry the common “tree” theme recommended by the medical center’s architect throughout much of the facility.

“They were hesitant at first because they had used wall murals on other projects that didn’t hold up. We pitched LexJet Velvet WallPro SUV with ClearShield Wall Armor and found that the stuff is tough when partnered together. We beat it up in the shop to test it beforehand and it held up really well,” says Tomkins.

Atrium Decor PrintingFor the windowed nurses’ station Tomkins chose LexJet Simple Perforated Window Vinyl (70/30). The trick was to ensure a perfect match from walls to windows. Not only that, but Tomkins took great pains to match the interior paint as well.

“They painted their building with a specific paint color, so we went to the paint manufacturer’s website, pulled those paint numbers, and plugged them in to make sure we matched their paint. We got the RGB formulations, converted them to CMYK and incorporated those colors into the graphic. They were impressed with how closely our prints matched their paint colors. You can’t tell where the wallpaper ends and the paint starts,” says Tomkins.

Tomkins adds that to ensure a seamless transition along the walls through the windows and back onto the walls from panel to panel he took pictures of the empty spaces and manually lined everything up instead of using the tiling function in the RIP software.

Creative Interior Imagery
The combination of GigaPan photography printed on LexJet Velvet WallPro SUV with an Epson SureColor S30670 brings the tree theme to life in the main atrium.

In addition to the vector tree art that adorns the walls and windows, Creative Interior Imagery installed a gigantic photo of a tree Tomkins found and captured in a local park. Tomkins photographed the tree with his GigaPan camera so that fine details would be apparent in the final print, also on LexJet Velvet WallPro and protected with Wall Armor.

“They wanted the tree to go up the wall and across the ceiling so you felt like you were sitting underneath it. I took the shot going up the trunk and through the canopy. By the time it was done it was a 1.2-gigapixel image. It’s 11 feet off the ground, goes up 19 feet and across the ceiling 14 or 15 feet and is about 10-12 feet wide. The resolution is amazing. If you get right up to it you can see the texture in the bark; it’s just like you’re standing in front of the tree,” says Tomkins.

Tomkins adds that this is the company’s largest project to date and that the combination of the right materials and a precise color management system made it a successful project sure to bring similar projects through the doors in the future.

Creative Interior Imagery“We spend a lot of time working with profiling software. We have an i1 and custom-profile all of our media. There are manufacturing tolerances in everything – printer, ink and media – and when we do it in-house we can get it spot on, like we did with the paint colors, which shows how the profiling helps. That’s one of the things that sets us apart, and when you get into a major project like using different materials and matching décor and paint color management is a big issue,” explains Tomkins. “And, at nighttime when the inside is lit, you can see it from the highway and it looks fantastic.”

The project was printed on Creative Interior Imagery’s Epson SureColor S30670 low-solvent printer. To illustrate the tight color tolerances Creative Interior Imagery’s color management system can produce, Tomkins recently created a gigapan wall mural of New York City using 12 different inkjet media on four different printers (the S30670, and the Epson Stylus Pro 11880, 7900 and 4880).

“With this 2 1/2′ x 6′ mural in our showroom we can show people how their print will look on the different media and show off our color matching skills, because that’s difficult to do,” says Tomkins. “The architectural firm did a walk-through of the medical center with interior designers after we installed the murals, and person who was leading the group remarked that no one else could match the quality of the materials and workmanship, so we were feeling pretty smug about that.”

Printing Creative Interiors for a Growing Market

Creative Interior Imagery
Creative Interior Imagery brings all kinds of environments to life with a full suite of services, from design to wide format printing and framing.

 

Several years ago, Keith Tomkins started a small printing company in his basement called Zeopix. Business soon blossomed and it didn’t take long for Zeopix to move to a commercial space to better handle the additional work that was flowing in.

Creative Interior ImageryShortly thereafter, Zeopix partnered with Marsico Art & Framing to create a new company focused on the decoration of commercial interior spaces, Creative Interior Imagery, based in West Pittson, Pa. The new company specializes in transforming restaurant, medical, hotel and resort, and corporate environments.

The Zeopix side of the business continues to serve a more consumer, retail group of clientele while business continues to build at Creative Interior Imagery. The road to success was paved by Tomkins’ diverse background as a Navy airplane mechanic, photographer, and hardware and software designer.

“After the Navy, I spent 17 years in Silicon Valley designing hardware and software for companies. This was back in the days when Adobe was a font foundry, and we were working on the first systems that would do some of the things Photoshop does today,” says Tomkins. “One day I went to a local shop that did photo printing. I had some great scans I wanted blown up, so I took them over and got some real crappy prints back. I told him I wasn’t happy with the work, and he told me to take it somewhere else. That’s when I found there was nowhere else.”

Creative Interior ImageryThus a need for quality print work was identified and Tomkins purchased his first wide-format printer, an Epson Stylus Pro 7600 from LexJet. Tomkins says he started printing to support his photography hobby, but word soon got around and printing was dominating his time.

Tomkins soon added a Stylus Pro 4880 and 9900 to keep up with demand. As the opportunity to provide more interior décor printing emerged, Tomkins decided to add an Epson SureColor S30670 to the mix.

“A lot of companies will bid a project and go to one person for art, one for window graphics, one for walls and so forth. We can offer a one-stop solution, and having the solvent printer has allowed us to offer new products and lower our costs on some of our current products, like large canvas prints. For a four-color printer and one in that price range, I’m blown away by the print quality.” says Tomkins. “The solvent printer is being used mostly for vinyl and large canvas items that are more production-oriented. If I’m doing a custom reproduction for an artist or photographer, they want the colors spot-on, so that’s where I use the aqueous printers.”

Creative Interior ImageryTomkins adds that he had been working with Marsico Art & Framing on commercial project over the past few years, but officially began the partnership, and Creative Interior Imagery, in the past year to meet the expanding needs of his customer base.

Marsico Art & Framing brings its expertise in custom framing, art selection, placement and installation to ensure a seamless, consistent, high-quality experience for each of its clients. The list of services at Creative Interior Imagery touches every point of the process, from art consultation to installation, as well as a print treatment for virtually any surface, from floor to ceiling.

Hospital Graphics“LexJet has been a big help in building our business. One of the things I can always count on with LexJet is tech support. I’m a tech guy myself, but there are times that I need to consult with my LexJet sales rep, Michael Clementi, and he can usually get me an answer himself right away. If he doesn’t know the answer he finds someone at LexJet who does and gets right back to me,” says Tomkins. “I also use a lot of LexJet products because they’re reasonably priced and I’ve had very good luck with them. The quality and value is there, and I’m not waiting around for products I need right away; having multiple warehouses is a big thing.”