Laminates, Shipping and Customer Service

Finding laminates for inkjet printingI recently called one of LexJet’s customers out of the blue looking for some general feedback on laminates and lamination for one of our industry magazines. The customer, Ray Thompson, Jr. of Signs & Designs in Memphis, happily obliged.

A big part of our discussion revolved around how much Thompson appreciates his LexJet customer specialist, David Ianotti, and how Ianotti has been a valuable resource for the 35-year-old company that’s evolved from a modest hand-painted sign business to a digitally-driven powerhouse.

“If he says he’ll do something for me, it happens immediately. If he says, ‘I’ll check on that,’ I usually get an email within 30 seconds. He keeps me very updated; I don’t even have to ask questions. I order something and he lets me know all the parameters of my inventory and shipping,” says Thompson. “Our production had increased by 35 percent, and we were running out of available stock.  David made a spot for us in the closest warehouse so we could get it super fast every time we order it. David was able to work it out quickly, and the laminate has been a consistent product with no defects roll to roll.”

The consistent product Thompson alluded to above is LexJet Performance Satin UV Vinyl (3 Mil), aka SATLAM. “We’ve had really good success with SATLAM. We’re in a very high moisture area, and one of the advantages is that it has a silica based backer on it, which makes it easier to work with. We’ve tried just about every laminate on the market and this is one of the best we’ve used.”

Barking up the Right Tree with Photography and Inkjet Printing

Jack Kenner’s photography has covered a range of areas through the years, from capturing happy couples at formal events in the early days to shots of exotic and endangered animals across the globe. But his latest focus has been portraits of man’s best friend.

Inkjet printing in-houseHis interest was sparked when a photo he exhibited at an art show, featuring his two West Highland White Terriers in the household dishwasher, was a huge hit. “By the end of the day I was doing dog portraits. Since then I’ve been doing dog portraits on demand from coast to coast. I go all over California and Texas, up to Connecticut, down into Florida and Atlanta, and over to Colorado and Wyoming,” the Memphis-based photographer explains.

He will spend a week or so at dog shows across the country, taking portraits or getting commissions for portraits in other areas, then return home to his Memphis studio, where he does all of the printing himself. Kenner has been doing his own printing almost as long as he has been behind the camera, a passion that was sparked in his teen years.

“Right off the bat I’ve found it was easier to go in and print my own work. I actually got a job in high school as a printer for a commercial lab. I was using enlargers and doing color enlargements,” Kenner explains. The experience there gave him the foundation he would need for his own career, leading to another lab job while he attended Brooks Institute of Photography.

“I’d go to school during the day and work at a lab at night. I was doing commercial printing for photographers in Santa Barbara, California, and I would work all night as a printer, and by that time I knew what color was all about so I would just do my own work. I would print and color correct and deliver it in the morning to the lab, then have to leave and go back to school again,” Kenner says.

It wasn’t until he made a move back to Memphis after a stint in New York that Kenner realized it was time to get back into printing and set up a darkroom in his personal studio. “After that I got into the digital age and in 2000 I bought the Epson 2000.”

It was a few years later when he bought the Epson 7600 that Kenner first came to LexJet. Since that time he has increased his printer inventory dramatically. Currently, he’s working with a battery of Epsons and a Canon iPF8300 to produces his photos.

Photographing dog portraitsKenner’s diverse line of printers enables him to devote one printer to color, one to black and whites and another to canvas prints, but he says, “Now with the 8300 I can do all of it with one printer, which is really nice and simplified.”

Kenner uses three primary materials to print his work: LexJet Sunset Velvet Rag,  Sunset Photo eSatin Paper and Sunset Select Matte Canvas. “The eSatin is just so easy to work with; it reminds me of working with color paper in the old school days. And I’m working now with the Velvet Rag; I’ll actually do multimedia with that. I’ll print on it and then work with an artist to paint on top of it. I’ll also work with artists where I’ll print on the canvas and then come back and do multimedia on top of that with watercolor, oils or acrylics,” says Kenner. Like so many other LexJet customers, Kenner is always finding unique ways of using the products.

Photographic painting“LexJet is a great reference because when something is going haywire with the computer, Photoshop or the printer and I can’t get in touch with the manufacturer, LexJet is always there as a resource,” he explains. “LexJet is an ace in the hole to call on to get good advice, or find out how to fix the problem and get back to work immediately. In the old days I’d have to bring in somebody from out of town and pay them an arm and a leg to come and fix it and then they’d come in and it’d take forever to get the parts in town. Now with these machines and LexJet on the line I can get things happening within the same day. There’s no wasting time trying to get something fixed or figure it out.”