Stone Graphics Company
Craftsman sign maker chooses
Gator to offer banners, fleet graphics
The latest addition to Chris Stone's
toolbox at Stone Graphics Company, Inc. is a
DisplayMaker® 72s digital solvent printer.
Back in 1989, Stone started the
company at his house, moving from room to room, then to a
converted chicken coop, then to a commercial space as the
business grew. Today Stone Graphics employs thirteen at
the 13,000 square foot shop, where they make screen
printed, dimensional, cut vinyl, sandblasted, and
wide-format inkjet signs. Stone's dimensional signs are
custom-built, often combining various 3D and 2D elements,
even gold leaf, to achieve a superior result. (He
confessed that his impressive photo gallery at
http://www.signsbystone.com/ is a few years
obsolete--incoming jobs give him no time to update it,
says Stone.)
A 1990s building boom in his area
fueled demand for on-site construction signage,
dimensional signage for new building developments, and
fleet graphics for his customers' pickup trucks, SUVs, and
construction vehicles.
Stone stays current with developments
in the wide-format graphics industry by reading trade
magazines and attending trade shows. He saw the
possibilities of combining desktop photo and illustration
software with wide-format digital output to liven up the
often utilitarian construction signs. Adding the
customer's color logo or an artist's rendering of the
completed project soon set apart signs by Stone from his
competitors' work.
While shopping around at a trade show
for a solvent ink printer to replace his 42-inch, aqueous
printer, Stone was impressed with the
DisplayMaker 72s "Gator." After delivery, he had a
very good "out-of-box experience." The first order to be
printed on the Gator was received even before the printer
was installed. The Gator was installed on a Thursday, on
Friday it began printing, and by Sunday Stone was shipping
two 2x12-foot, and ten 2x2-foot backlit signs for a boat
show later that week.
In the month since the Gator was
installed, the jobs it has printed include: a 10x17 foot
billboard, a 6x20 foot billboard, various 4x8 foot posters
laminated to plywood, a 3x24 foot sign for a local new
business, and graphics for a pylon sign with three 5x10
foot faces. Rarely printing banners before owning the
Gator, Stone is now printing a 1500-foot construction
fence banner that will take 17 rolls of
ColorSpan® Scrim Banner Vinyl to print! The printer is
rarely idle, mostly only to change or reload media, since
ink can be refilled on-the-fly. With the Gator's durable,
true solvent output, Stone rarely has to use lamination.
Using the
DisplayMaker 72s, Stone was able to help a
construction company client who wanted to duplicate the
custom, airbrushed and hand-lettered fleet graphics from
his existing vehicles onto his new dump trucks. The artist
who did the original work was very expensive and not
available for weeks. Stone was able to digitally capture
the airbrushed illustration and lettering, and print new
vinyl graphics on the
DisplayMaker 72s, at a significant time and dollar
savings to the customer. The Gator's four-color image
quality puts multidensity six-color solvent printers to
shame: "You can't hit a red with those printers," said
Stone.
Stone had this tip for ColorSpan trade
show staff: bring two Gators to the next show, one to
print and one available to demonstrate its many automated
ease-of-use features such as the touch-screen control
panel interface, AutoJet and AutoTune calibrations,
Purge-n-Wipe automated printhead maintenance, easy media
loading, and more. (So noted!)
Now Stone is faced with a familiar
problem: he may need to move to a larger space again, if
he decides to buy a second Gator.
For more information:
Stone Graphics Company, Inc.
5020 Industrial Rd
Farmingdale, NJ 07727
(732) 919-1111
http://www.signsbystone.com/
MacDermid ColorSpan, Inc.
11311 K-Tel Drive
Minnetonka, MN 55343
(800) 477-7714
http://www.colorspan.com/ |
